Climate Letter #1565

Important new information about the effect of industrial aerosols on Earth’s climate (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research).  Burning fossil fuels adds a great deal of pollution to the atmosphere in the form of particulate matter.  Scientists have always realized how this has a cooling effect at the surface, but are quite uncertain about how much.  It would be a good thing to know because these aerosols will be diminished as the burning rate of such fuels ultimately declines.  Here is what this team has found and concluded:  “The relationship between aerosols (particulate matter) and their cooling effect on the Earth due to the formation of clouds is more than twice as strong as was previously thought. As the amounts of aerosols decrease, climate models that predict a faster warming of the Earth are more probable.”  They do not give us an exact amount of such warming but it could well be significant (maybe around one-half degree C by my own rough estimate).  The study was published by a top-quality journal, and was peer-reviewed, but must still undergo an intense “second level” of peer review by the entire science community because of its extraordinary revision of previous estimates that IPCC climate forecasts have employed.

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–The study has open access, with a few key spots that are not difficult to read:
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This same kind of air pollution is now found to be causing even more varieties of health problems than those already well known (Inside Climate News).  “A new Harvard University study for the first time links hospitalizations for common blood, skin and kidney ailments to short-term exposure to fine particulate matter from fossil fuel combustion and wildfires…..The study shows that the health dangers and economic impacts of air pollution are significantly larger than previously understood.”  The underlying mechanism of these effects within the body is often not clear, and needs further research, but the statistical connection cannot be dismissed—one more reason for humans to stop burning fossil fuels.
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An interview with the lead author of a study published earlier this year, from Tufts University (Phys.org).  His study was entitled, Robust abatement pathways to tolerable climate futures require immediate global action.  It does not have open access but this new interview explores the authors’ main ideas, which have since been picked up by other studies.  The principal message:  “The study underscores, with its novel computational approach, the urgent need for massive global action within a narrow window of just ten years….. the consequences of a failure are drastic, and we are already experiencing those consequences.”  The interview also tells us about some of his personal feelings toward working as a scientist in such a sensitive area, which I find quite admirable.
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Drone-based observations of Greenland’s ice sheet add to concerns about its instability (University of Cambridge).  This study focused on fracture formations under many of the meltwater lakes that are commonly found on the surface in summer.  “These fractures cause catastrophic lake drainages, in which huge quantities of surface water are transferred to the sensitive environment beneath the ice…..the team showed how the meltwater causes the formation of new fractures, as well as the expansion of dormant fractures.”  The results are sometimes spectacular.
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A Danish study has calculated that the frequency of the most damaging kind of North American hurricanes has greatly increased over the last century (Climate News Network).  The researchers used a novel method for assessing the violence of any particular storm, separate from actual reports of economic losses, showing a relative increase in the more violent kind occurring in sync with rising temperatures.  “The frequency of the most damaging hurricanes has increased at the rate of 350% per century.”
Carl

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