Global Dimming and Its Effects


In today's society we are reliant on producing energy to fuel our lifestyles, but by doing so we create pollutants that are a leading cause of global warming. A normally overlooked possible after effect of these pollutants is global dimming. Being such a seldom covered topic I found this article to be highly informative. Between 1950 and 1990 scientists discovered that there were both small and large changes in the amount of sunlight reaching the earth. This decrease in sunlight is called global dimming, which is when pollution from the consumption of energy becomes trapped in the atmosphere and reduces the amount of sunlight available. Some believed that global dimming had caused multiple droughts around the world. Although global dimming is an issue, it also protects us. Immediately after 9/11 Dr. David Travis collected records from various weather stations and found that the temperature range had increased by over one degree Celsius during the three days that all flights were grounded. According to his research, if we begin burning fuels cleaner than what we have been then this could lead to an increase in the global temperature. I am not entirely on-board with this theory, but it is certainly a concerning possibility.








http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amarnath-amarasingam/what-is-global-dimming_b_740996.html

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