global dimming...why do we have to get news from UK?

[medeak]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml

We are all seeing rather less of the Sun. Scientists looking at five decades of sunlight measurements have reached the disturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface has been gradually falling. Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought.

The effect was first spotted by Gerry Stanhill, an English scientist working in Israel. Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation. "There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me," he says.

Intrigued, he searched out records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked, with sunlight falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to 1-2% globally per decade between the 1950s and the 1990s.

[rodeodance]

1. "a temperature rise of 10°C by 2100 could be on the cards,"--WhY?--guess

a story like this is not glamerous enough? Bush denounces climate change and the stupid media follows suit.



......But perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect. They know how much extra energy is being trapped in the Earth's atmosphere by the extra carbon dioxide (CO2) we have placed there. What has been surprising is that this extra energy has so far resulted in a temperature rise of just 0.6°C.

This has led many scientists to conclude that the present-day climate is less sensitive to the effects of carbon dioxide than it was, say, during the ice age, when a similar rise in CO2 led to a temperature rise of 6°C. But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out. This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than thought.

If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers. As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control. "We're going to be in a situation, unless we act, where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. That means we'll get reduced cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Cox.

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10°C by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable. That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.

[medeak]

2. global warming doesn't exist. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Excellent post! Thanks.

[medeak]

4. it was sent to me from UK

from a friend there. Pray tell...why don't we get this info in US?

[starroute]

5. This was discussed at DU a year ago

"Global Dimming" -- the latest environment problem
May-08-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1556118

Now, "Global Dimming"....
May-13-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1593215


I'm not saying it wasn't worth bringing up again -- but don't blame the US media for not reporting it.

The real question is why, a year later, nobody seems to know about it.

[medeak]

6. thanks for links.

feel assuaged that they were US reports.. and yep...not picked up eh?

[dbt]

7. But let's have no mention of Chemtrails, please,

or the role they may be playing in this Global Dimming. And while we're at it, let's not think of Edward Teller's plan to set about "diminishing slightly--by about 1 percent--the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface in order to counteract any warming effect of greenhouse gases," as discussed in his article "Sunscreen For Planet Earth." Link.

After all, we wouldn't want to appear :tinfoilhat:.

[bobthedrummer]

8. We've had them over Green Bay since at least 1998-there's a NOAA

satellite pic of them forming (from October 1998) on the internet.

The world is getting dimmer. Chemtrails reduce available sunlight.

The weather is getting more extreme.

Chemtrail link
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Chemtrails.html