Study: less air pollution is heating up the Earth

Lower air pollution contributes to global warming

Dr. Peter F. Mayer, tkp.at

Two new studies conclude that “most of the warming this century may be due to the reduction in air pollution” – but not to CO2.

“Reducing pollution is therefore an obstacle to achieving the UN climate targets.” According to Peter Cox of the University of Exeter, most of the Earth’s warming this century is not due to greenhouse gases but to the reduction in air pollution, above all from sulphur dioxide: “Two-thirds of the global warming since 2001 is due to the reduction in [sulphur dioxide] rather than the increase in [carbon dioxide].”

Several studies, by evaluating different data sets from satellite measurements, had shown that the Earth’s albedo, i.e. the reflection of sunlight back into space, had decreased. One of the studies (German report) concluded:

According to CERES observations, the Earth’s all-sky albedo has decreased by about 0.79 % since 2000, leading to an increase in the absorption of planetary shortwave radiation of ≈2.7 W/m2.

So an additional 2.7 W/m2 or so reaches the Earth’s surface, almost three quarters of it the water of the oceans, which is warmed by solar radiation but not by long-wave back radiation from the greenhouse effect. The result is a warmer climate, and warmer oceans even release more CO2 into the air. Other studies of satellite data, which TKP reported on here and here (German), produced similar results. Mind you, these were measurements, with a welcome absence of modellers.

Sulphur aerosols are known to be responsible for a large part of cloud formation and thus for the Earth’s albedo. Now Peter Cox of the University of Exeter explains that, because of the falling sulphur oxide burden in the air, clouds have become darker and reflect less sunlight, which could be responsible for much of the recent warming: “Two-thirds of the global warming since 2001 is due to the reduction in SO2 rather than the increase in CO2.”

We have already seen this effect with the reduction of pollution from shipping. In this article (German), TKP showed how record heat in the Atlantic is caused by environmental protection measures for cargo ships. As Paul Voosen reported in Science on 2 Aug. 2023, the cause of the record ocean heat is “the reduction in pollution [from] the ship-track clouds and contributes to global warming”.

A just-published study by Samset et al. entitled “East Asian aerosol cleanup has likely contributed to the recent acceleration in global warming” reaches similar conclusions:

Using a large set of simulations from eight Earth system models, we show here how a temporally progressive 75 % reduction in East Asian sulphate emissions partially cancels the warming caused by greenhouse gases and influences the spatial pattern of surface temperature change. We find a rapidly developing global annual warming of 0.07 ± 0.05 °C, sufficient to be considered a main driver of the increase in the rate of global warming since 2010. We also find a warming of the North Pacific and a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere that are qualitatively consistent with recent observations. The cleanup of aerosols from the air in East Asia is therefore likely a major factor in the recent acceleration of global warming and in Pacific warming trends.

The fact that air pollution changes total solar irradiance (TSI) through changes in cloud cover and its reflectivity, and thus also influences the climate, has been known for a long time. However, it is consistently denied by the IPCC and the proponents of net-zero policies. Solar radiation is attributed less influence than CO2.

But as several studies have now shown, the temperature changes can easily be explained by this change in clouds. And with the studies on changes in air pollution, we also know the causes of the changes in cloud cover.

It is high time to finally abandon the destruction of prosperity and the economy by the policies of the EU and the Greens, to throw the pseudoscience of the IPCC and the UN into the rubbish bin and to follow the example of the USA with its new energy policy. It is to be feared that neither the UN-ocrats nor the Eurocrats are willing and able to recognise their errors.

However, changes in the intensity of solar radiation also have other causes, which can have far more serious consequences, such as a glacial period. As recently reported, astrophysicists and experienced meteorologists predict a significant cooling towards a Little Ice Age in the coming decades.

Original tkp.at article (German)

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