the Dimming sun

Dimming the sun

In the early 21st century, it's become clear that air pollution can significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth, lower temperatures, and mask the warming effects of greenhouse gases. Climate researcher James Hansen estimates that "global dimming" is cooling our planet by more than a degree Celsius (1.8°F) and fears that as we cut back on pollution, global warming may escalate to a point of no return.

At least that was the case until September 11, 2001. For the first time since the jet age began, virtually all aircraft were grounded over the United States for three days. Even as they tried like the rest of us to absorb the enormity of the terrorist attacks, climatologists realized they had an unprecedented opportunity to scrutinize individual contrails, and several studies were quickly launched

Another study that took advantage of the grounding gave striking evidence of what contrails can do. David Travis of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and two colleagues measured the difference, over those three contrail-free days, between the highest daytime temperature and the lowest nighttime temperature across the continental U.S. They compared those data with the average range in day-night temperatures for the period 1971-2000, again across the continguous 48 states. Travis's team discovered that from roughly midday September 11 to midday September 14, the days had become warmer and the nights cooler, with the overall range greater by about two degrees Fahrenheit.

this was an interesting program. i didn't notice how the sky looked the 3 days following sept 11th. I did however notice the other morning comming to work that i could see half a dozen contrails and during the day how much haze was in the upper atmosphere.


they had confirmation of this with the pan evaporation studies that have been going on in some places longer than a year. the reduction in pan evaporation mirrored the dimming of the sun.

what's going to happen when we clean up the aerosol particles. will the world warm faster. it would seem that aerosol particals have been helping slow warming

LiveScience.com Wed Jan 25, 9:00 AM ET

Baffled Scientists Say Less Sunlight Reaching Earth

After dropping for about 15 years, the amount of sunlight Earth reflects back into space, called albedo, has increased since 2000, a new study concludes.

That means less energy is reaching the surface. Yet global temperatures have not cooled during the period.

Increasing cloud cover seems to be the reason, but there must also be some other change in the clouds that's not yet understood.

"The data also reveal that from 2000 to now the clouds have changed so that the Earth may continue warming, even with declining sunlight," said study leader Philip R. Goode of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. "These large and peculiar variabilities of the clouds, coupled with a resulting increasing albedo, presents a fundamental, unmet challenge for all scientists who wish to understand and predict the Earth's climate."

Cloud changes

Earth's albedo is measured by noting how much reflected sunlight in turn bounces off the Moon, something scientists call earthshine. The observations were made at the Big Bear Solar Observatory in California.

The findings will be published Jan. 24 in Eos, a weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union.

On any given day, about half of Earth is covered by clouds, which reflect more sunlight than land and water. Clouds keep Earth cool by reflecting sunlight, but they can also serve as blankets to trap warmth.

High thin clouds are better blankets, while low thick clouds make better coolers.

Separately, satellite data recently showed that while the difference between high and low clouds had long been steady at 7-8 percent, in the past five years, for some unknown reason, the difference has jumped to 13 percent. High, warming clouds have increased while low clouds have decreased.

Research shows condensation trails, or contrails from jet airplanes, fuel more high-altitude clouds. But they have not been shown to account for all the observed change.

What about global warming?

Earth's albedo appears to have experienced a similar reversal during a period running from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.

Goode's team says there may be a large, unexplained variation in sunlight reaching the Earth that changes over the course of two decades or so, as well as a large effect of clouds re-arranging by altitude.

How do the findings play into arguments about global warming and the apparent contribution by industrial emissions? That's entirely unclear.

"No doubt greenhouse gases are increasing," Goode said in a telephone interview. "No doubt that will cause a warming. The question is, 'Are there other things going on?'"

What is clear is that scientists don't understand clouds very well, as a trio of studies last year also showed.

"Clouds are even more uncertain than we thought," Goode said.

[edit on 5/10/2006 by ViolatoR]

The Nova program on this was fascinating, and the data made sense. I didn't look up additional supporting papers, but the researchers have managed to convince just about everyone... except the Bush administration.

~~

well,

i've only made 1 prop plane, and 3 jet flights in 47 years...

2 of the jet flights were to europe & back, per military orders.

Theres a need for jets & such, but what about heavily taxing
the frequent-flyer-miles that the 'don't-give-a-durn' types accumulate.

Using this $$ as funding for some sorta atmospheric 'ionizers'
(you've seen em on TV Ads...adnausium)
which might be deployed by Zepplin/Dirgibles that are downwind
from those aircraft corridors at some 30,000Ft.

just a what If idea to help nutralize the problem (not fix it)