Global Dimming and Global Warming Essay

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Dimming the Sun

Global dimming is the idea that the amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth. The idea is that the by-products of fossils fuels, which are tiny particles suspend in the air, gather water moisture from the air. This moisture forms into bright clouds, which then gather up solar energy and reflect it back into space.

The phenomenon of global dimming was first recognized in the 1950s. While initial theories focused on the sun itself, scientist came to realize that this was not an explanatory factor, and that something human-caused must be. The initial research focused on temperature readings, and on readings related to the amount of radiation that reaches the earth. These found that there was a decreasing amount of radiation reaching the earth. The amount of the decrease varies from one part of the world to another, but the overall consistency of the pattern indicated that there was a global dimming effect. Further research was able to determine the cause of the dimming, which is the airborne particulates.

The INDOEX field experiment sought to determine the causes of global dimming. This -- the Indian Ocean Experiment -- was conducted in the Maldives in 1999. Researchers pumped aerosols into the atmosphere to test their effects, in a quasi-controlled experiment. INDOEX used measures on aircraft, watercraft and on land, as well as upper air instrumentation, to measure the effects of the experiment. What they found was that aerosols do in fact create a dimming effect on the atmosphere.

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They found that with more aerosols in the atmosphere, there are more clouds created, and those clouds are brighter. The brighter clouds reflect more solar radiation back into space. This research confirmed the hypothesis of global dimming, and allowed the scientists to get more precise measurements to describe the effect.

Global dimming means more clouds, and more storms. Essentially, the aerosols in the atmosphere provide nuclei around which water vapor gathers. This is how clouds are formed. So global dimming means that there will be more clouds in the atmosphere. These clouds are brighter as well, and that is why the reflect more radiation back into space. So the basic weather pattern associated with global dimming is a higher degree of cloud cover. The cloud cover is also brighter. The result then is less radiation reaching the surface of the earth.

For climate change, the implication of global dimming is negative. Basically, global dimming has been occurring as the result of fossil fuel burning, and thus it acts as a drag on global warming. The implications of this are viewed as quite alarming, because it means that without dimming, the climate would already have warmed to a significant degree -- more than it already has. The global warming effect is essentially competing with the dimming effect, and the warming effect is stronger. So at this point, with the warming effect increasing in intensity, if the dimming effect were to….....

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