NYT: Study -- Pollution May Slow Warming -- Misleading headline?

[Bru]

<EDIT: corrected link...thanks Dead Parrot>

Pollution May Slow Warming; Cleaner Air May Speed It, Study Says

By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: December 22, 2005

Pollution may be slowing global warming, researchers are reporting today, and a cleaner environment may soon speed it up.

Writing in the journal Nature, an international scientific team provides evidence suggesting that a reduction in haze from human causes may accelerate warming of the earth's atmosphere. The researchers said pollutants had held down the rate of global warming by absorbing and scattering sunlight.

"If people clean up the air, more warming will come blazing through," Jim Coakley, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. Nature selected Dr. Coakley to write a commentary on the study.

<snip>

Haze scatters and absorbs some sunlight, keeping it from reaching the ground, and this cooling effect is stronger than many scientists had believed, the study says. The cooling offsets about one-third of the warming from the use of fossil fuels and other manmade causes, the study says.

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This has already become fodder for wingnuts. In Freeperville they are bragging about their SUV usage.

A couple of issues with this...

The sentence I emboldened cites the study's claim that the cooling offsets only 1/3 of the warming from fossil fuels. So this means that it doesn't cut global warming, just slows the growth. The warming of greenhouse gases still, it would seem to follow, trumps the effect of aerosols. So the question is, are they a remedy or a mitigation? If the latter, then the headline is misleading.

Obviously the aerosol thing is a complicated issue, and I'm afraid it will be skewed to say that there's nothing wrong with pollution. Please contribute your thoughts.

[blitzen]

1. What a hoot! Let's pollute!

not my thoughts, but my rendition of freepers' thoughts

[burrowowl]

2. If Bu$h decides to use

Nukes, the resulting Nuke Winter may cancel out Global Warming. :sarcasm: :mad:

[sandnsea]

3. Corvallis

Not the most right wing school in the country, but it's not Eugene or Ashland either. I think I'll wait for a more credible opinion.

[progdonkey]

4. that's like saying...

if you spread a foot-thick layer of shit over the space of a football field, and some flowers grow in a few places, those few flowers absolutely negate the fowl stench of the rest of the shit.

:banghead:

[Dead_Parrot]

5. They need to define "pollution"

The article seems to be referring to particular pollution (that is, pollution made up of particles, like soot) which I can imagine would reflect light and reduce warming: But CO2, methane and other non-particular pollution certainly do cause warming.

That's my reading of it, at any rate: The article seems to be an exercise in vague reporting, so I may have the wrong end of the stick.

(BTW, your link's duff: article here) :)

[sam sarrha]

6. three chears for polution...

:applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:

[xchrom]

7. there are so many things wrong with this report...

i'm going to be waiting for commentary on this -- cause i imagine other scientists will be having a lot to say -- after they pick up the pieces of their exploded heads.

[julianer]

8. It's known as 'Global Dimming'

according to a BBC Horizon prog broadcast about a year ago.

The real effects of global warming are hidden from us by a thin blanket of particulates that block sunlight and diminish the heat reaching the surface (I'm no expert, be gentle).

I remember a detail about an American scientist who first recognised the problem after flights were grounded post 9/11. He noticed an increase in ground temperature as the skies cleared. Other evidence from India, metereological data etc. Quite convincing and if it was on Horizon it demands respect, IMO.

[philb]

9. What's more serious? global warming or global mercury pollution

and acid rain and other types of pollution