Pollution Could Buy An Extra Decade of Arctic Sea Ice

Gillett co-authored the new research in pre-publication with Geophysical Research Letters. The findings show that aerosols have blunted 60 percent of the warming in the Arctic through the 20th century, a notable statistic given that the Arctic has still warmed at twice the rate as the rest of the planet.

This summer saw the fourth-lowest extent on record (and this winter also saw the lowest winter maximum on record). With temperatures projected to keep rising, it’s only a matter of time before the Arctic experiences an ice-free summer.

Going forward, aerosols — small particles that make up air pollution and reflect sunlight back into space — could continue to keep the northern reaches of the planet somewhat cool. Using a middle of the road carbon emissions scenario (which is a little optimistic given currently pledges) as well as rising aerosols, Gillett and his team show that the Arctic is likely to see an ice-free summer around 2057.

When his team ran the same scenario but capped air pollution at 2000 levels, ice-free summers in the Arctic started more than a decade earlier in 2045.

www.climatecentral.org...


I am still not sure what percentage Man has in the great Climate Change debate, but it appears pollution and contrails/clouds are actually helping. Models are now factoring in the existing aerosols that exist and seeing their estimates of an ice free arctic, extended by a decade.

While I have no background to enable me to have a valid opinion on this, I do have hopes that the Earth will do what it has repeatedly done in the past and start trending the opposite way at a very slow pace. If that was the case, we might not be doomed as so many have stated.

But the good news is, those contrails and clouds are helping, even if you don't like them. And with air travel increasing, there is little to no chance this will change in any way other than to increase as well.

So you have a paradox. Pollution caused climate change, yet pollution also, apparently, mitigates it's effects to a degree.

Funny how predictions are made and claimed to be accurate, then they pop up some new information that they failed to take into consideration.
That makes it hard to take their predictions seriously.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Science is ever evolving, so it's hard to blame them. On the other hand, it's hard to make empirical statements about a subject like this when so much isn't known yet. I think letting the blow hards blow as much as they want is harmless and waiting for the Earth to do what it will do is about the only option.

And amazingly enough, we can cut emissions and reduce pollution all while we wait. Whodathunkit?

a reply to: network dude


I'm all for reducing emissions and renewable energies. I want to build more nuke plants to.
But not cripple the economy doing it.

a reply to: Bluntone22

What, you mean take an intelligent, non alarmist approach? Why, that's crazy. Nothing works without fear. Nothing.

originally posted by: network dude

I am still not sure what percentage Man has in the great Climate Change debate, but it appears pollution and contrails/clouds are actually helping.

Contrails are pollutants too, besides that and before you let those contrails off the hook, other recent research finds that contrails have a net warming effect. That research was done only on persistent contrails as you might expect.
NASA Langley,
"The researchers found that contrails have an overall warming effect, acting like a light blanket. “The contrails are trapping more heat in the atmosphere compared to cooling from reflected sunlight,” Spangenberg said. However, Bedka and Spangenberg said that the effect is still quite small."

a reply to: smurfy

Yes, that was what I had leaned also. Though, as you said, the amount is unknown.

Did you read the article? This is saying the pollution and aerosols (that cause contrails), when factored into existing models, extend the life of the glaciers by a decade. It'll be interesting to see if this is the case.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: smurfy

Yes, that was what I had leaned also. Though, as you said, the amount is unknown.

Did you read the article? This is saying the pollution and aerosols (that cause contrails), when factored into existing models, extend the life of the glaciers by a decade. It'll be interesting to see if this is the case.

It's the modelling bit that gets me, and also this guy Nathan Gillett who is an ex-University of East Anglia person. Along with GISS, they are very much into this modelling thing in the field of, 'something change'.
Nathan Gillett did some modelling back a while on the, 'effect of climate change on Canadian forests' (alternatively fill that space with Squirrel habitat or, drop in sexual libedo, or extinction of polar bears, or.... ) Anyway he does stuff that gets attention. Interestingly enough, he did a pow-wow, again a while back on the, 'overestimation of climate change over 20 years' or something like that..whooo!
So even if this modelling story has a basis, what to do? start a bit of er um, spraying? exactly what the mumbo jumbo has been saying all along...with all the given specifics, just because of some modelling, and just because there is the notion of, 'something change' .
There's far more if you go back, 'Volcanic eruptions have far less impact than Anthropogenic on the climate' is one statement I've looked at, yet others propose that it was Volcanoes, maybe even 'super Volcanoes' ? that killed the Dinosaurs..yes an in-house controversy alright, with probably more insults attached than you'll ever see here, yet we are supposed to believe stuff that these guys throw out..to us, routinely with their models.
So, what are models based on in regard to 'Something Change', the raw data? I would expect so, those little huts that are everywhere, in airports, or sitting baking in the Arizona Sun, and often not where they are supposed to be like two shakes of a lambs tail from AC units and parking bays...and the list goes on, and that's only fairly recent with modern tech, never mind a century or two with the old stuff. BTW, sex is bad for you too, and will shorten your life span, after the age of 90...Meh! maybe I got that one wrong, it's probably the age of 90 that's bad for you.

a reply to: smurfy

I think we are both on the same page as far as climate change, but this article, if it proves to be true, could prove that contrails are helping cool the planet. I am not sure if that will make SRM more of an option, but it's a way to prove results without deliberately making changes to the environment, which is one of my biggest concerns. Don't get me wrong, I am still not sure we even need to try to "fix" this, as I still hold out hope this is a natural Earth event we don't get to control. It would suck badly to find that we could screw up a planet to the point of killing off life in less than 200 years. I just hope the Earth is stronger than that.

a reply to: network dude

Thanks, I missed this!

However, I should add that contrails have nothing to do with this - its aerosols from industrial activity (and forest fires etc) that have mitigated the warming thus far.

All current research suggest contrails cause a small amount of warming.

a reply to: AndyMayhew

Since this is all about pollution and AEROSOLS, I thought it would fit here in the contrail section. After all, contrails can't be contrails without aerosols.

But I do think it's ironic that its proposed that pollution caused this, and now pollution is helping mitigate the effects of what it initially caused. It's like an irony sandwich.

a reply to: smurfy

This fact eliminates bunk-trails. When humans did not have modern homes they polluted so heavily they could not see one another. Today whatever humans do it has the same effect done long ago because we are already so beyond damages it makes no sense to say anything at all about anthropogenic damages to the geosphere. In fact, roads and cows if they were removed it would take a few hundred years to get back what>
There s a hole in the ozone, there are flights and spaceflights, fracking, deforestation and now dead seas and waste from Fukushima radioactive fallout.
The Earth uses plant life near the seas to stop erosion from the seas. It uses plants for clean air and everything you see gone is now not coming back, so a new race from laboratories will begin to populate adding to the dearth. Everything that lives now has a chance to buy more vehicles, frack some gas and just plain go ahead and finish the planets final activities that were conducive to helping living things thrive. I am waiting for Home Depot to sell delux biospheres, then i will read the thread and most will write what I just wrote.

a reply to: lucindawrites

werent so many of us then. reconsider logic