Growing pollution leads to "global dimming"

[L. Coyote]

Mar 13, 2009 - http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE52B6VT20090313

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Visibility on clear days has declined in much of the world since the 1970s thanks to a rise in airborne pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.

They described a "global dimming" in particular over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, while visibility remained relatively stable over North America and improved over Europe, the researchers said.

Aerosols, tiny particles or liquid droplets belched into the air by the burning of fossil fuels and other sources, are responsible for the dimming, the researchers said.

"Aerosols are going up over a lot of the world, especially Asia," Robert Dickinson of the University of Texas, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

Dickinson and two University of Maryland researchers tracked measurements of visibility -- the distance someone can see on clear days -- taken from 1973 to 2007 at 3,250 meteorological stations worldwide. .............

[LiberalEsto]

1. Go up on the Blue Ridge in Virginia

You can't see very far these days because of the pollution.

[rurallib]

2. Saw a Nova on that a couple years ago. This is really scary

because if we actually clear the air and cut pollution, we may end up toasting our selves.