We all (should) know that greenhouse gases are warming the climate, but albedo, the Earth’s reflectiveness, is dropping, allowing in more sunlight. Are they connected and which is worse?
I used to take my students into the college car park, told them to put their hands on white cars and black cars to feel the temperature (and albedo ) difference. That way I didn't get sued for personal injury claims! 😬
Years ago I would also teach students that the ideal home would have a white roof and black walls, so the high summer sun would be reflected, and the low winter sun would be absorbed in the vertical walls to warm the house for free. Obviously that didn't catch on!
Even a policy of painting all roofs and roads white in cities would massively reduce the 'heat island' effect of cities, and reduce aircon usage and save energy bills too.
But hey, why sell them a tim of paint when you can sell them aircon and climate control for 1,000 times the price?
There are often simple, cheap and elegant solutions (in design terms). But hey, how can you make a profit from it?
Burning fossil fuels are the connection of course; that is what makes both the increased aerosols that deliver fast cooling as well as the GHG's that make slow warming.
Worth noting that the cooling effect comes first, and the effect of any FF pollution "pulse" is almost immediate and lasts only a few days to weeks, so for a time after increasing the rate of fossil fuel burning it makes some global cooling, then we get the appearance of 'recovery' as the slow and steady GHG tortoise catches up, reaches apparent equilibrium and then goes on to exceed it. It is never a "counter" to global warming - more like the warming counters the cooling effect... and it persists in a way that aerosols do not.
For the very unhelpful way that 'temporary' cooling has helped to confuse and mislead about the nature of the climate problem(s) fossil fuels cause and induce underestimation of the full extent of enduring warming influence fossil fuel aerosols deserve special condemnation.
For not stopping quickly when the fossil fuel burning stops - for their persistence - the GHG's are probably worse.
We can't counter the warming effect by burning more fossil fuels; delaying the reduction of fossil fuel burning because we are depending on the cooling of aerosols to make global warming look weaker than it actually is - to delay experiencing the full warming effect - will only make the warming worse.
I feel we do have the ability to adapt our current systems to be more albedo friendly, this may have been seen through the creation of artificial fertilizer when warming actually decreased for a short period while co2 and so2 were in lock step. Bioprecipitation could have a more positive effect if we learn what to plant where and how and when to irrigate to achieve the best effect. The concentration of cloud formation through land use change is indeed a concern and I believe this may be the reason for the drought the amazon recently faced with increased formation over the ocean boundary as the cooling associated with the earths rotation was overwhelming the precipitation pressures which usually kick in the biotic pump due to our land use changes. The trial of salt water in shipping exhaust may offer the ability to more safely cloud form over oceans although this would need rigorous trials but we do have old shipping contrails to guide us.
I agree Theodore, there are a number of promising research avenues to increase albedo including marine cloud brightening and ice thickening. The land use changes you suggest could be very important for both albedo and ecology.
I used to take my students into the college car park, told them to put their hands on white cars and black cars to feel the temperature (and albedo ) difference. That way I didn't get sued for personal injury claims! 😬
Years ago I would also teach students that the ideal home would have a white roof and black walls, so the high summer sun would be reflected, and the low winter sun would be absorbed in the vertical walls to warm the house for free. Obviously that didn't catch on!
Even a policy of painting all roofs and roads white in cities would massively reduce the 'heat island' effect of cities, and reduce aircon usage and save energy bills too.
But hey, why sell them a tim of paint when you can sell them aircon and climate control for 1,000 times the price?
There are often simple, cheap and elegant solutions (in design terms). But hey, how can you make a profit from it?
Burning fossil fuels are the connection of course; that is what makes both the increased aerosols that deliver fast cooling as well as the GHG's that make slow warming.
Worth noting that the cooling effect comes first, and the effect of any FF pollution "pulse" is almost immediate and lasts only a few days to weeks, so for a time after increasing the rate of fossil fuel burning it makes some global cooling, then we get the appearance of 'recovery' as the slow and steady GHG tortoise catches up, reaches apparent equilibrium and then goes on to exceed it. It is never a "counter" to global warming - more like the warming counters the cooling effect... and it persists in a way that aerosols do not.
For the very unhelpful way that 'temporary' cooling has helped to confuse and mislead about the nature of the climate problem(s) fossil fuels cause and induce underestimation of the full extent of enduring warming influence fossil fuel aerosols deserve special condemnation.
For not stopping quickly when the fossil fuel burning stops - for their persistence - the GHG's are probably worse.
We can't counter the warming effect by burning more fossil fuels; delaying the reduction of fossil fuel burning because we are depending on the cooling of aerosols to make global warming look weaker than it actually is - to delay experiencing the full warming effect - will only make the warming worse.
I feel we do have the ability to adapt our current systems to be more albedo friendly, this may have been seen through the creation of artificial fertilizer when warming actually decreased for a short period while co2 and so2 were in lock step. Bioprecipitation could have a more positive effect if we learn what to plant where and how and when to irrigate to achieve the best effect. The concentration of cloud formation through land use change is indeed a concern and I believe this may be the reason for the drought the amazon recently faced with increased formation over the ocean boundary as the cooling associated with the earths rotation was overwhelming the precipitation pressures which usually kick in the biotic pump due to our land use changes. The trial of salt water in shipping exhaust may offer the ability to more safely cloud form over oceans although this would need rigorous trials but we do have old shipping contrails to guide us.
I agree Theodore, there are a number of promising research avenues to increase albedo including marine cloud brightening and ice thickening. The land use changes you suggest could be very important for both albedo and ecology.