Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

Increasing Carbon Dioxide Emissions
According to the recently released USPIRG report The Carbon Boom, CO2 emissions in the U.S. almost doubled between 1960 and 2005. The rapidly developing Asian nations of China and India have also dramatically increased CO2 emissions. While there is no doubt at this point that increased CO2 is positively linked to global warming, and that includes human sources, George Bush does not see the threat as significant. Therefore, he refuses to take any action to reduce U.S. emissions. One of the unresolved issues is that global warming has not increased proportionately to CO2 levels. One of the reasons for that may be global dimming.

Global Dimming
Global dimming is a consequence of particulate pollution in the atmosphere which partially blocks sunlight from reaching the surface of Earth. This pollution is in part attributable to the burning of fossil fuels, but other sources include dust storms, volcanic eruptions, forest fires and the like. Global dimming is suspected of shifting weather patterns, and mediating (or offsetting) some of the global warming effects (Global Dimming)

Between 1950 and the 1990s, sunlight decreased by about 10% globally, though it was higher regionally - Hong Kong saw a decrease of 37%.

"There could be a big gorilla sitting on the dining table, and we didn't know about it," said Dr. Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at the University of California, San Diego. "There are many, many issues that it raises."

It is possible that global dimming is already responsible for the deaths of millions of people from heat waves and extended droughts as monsoons seem to have shifted north.

While dimming seems to be shifting weather patterns, it may also be keeping us from seeing the full effects of increasing greenhouse gases. However, as particulate pollution controls has started to decrease the dimming effect, it may be linked to more accelerating greenhouse effects from CO2.

With the grounding of all air traffic in after 9/11/01, the lack of contrails from planes resulted in a 1 degree temperature rise (Global Dimming.) To put that in perspective, that is the same as the temperature rise over the last century.

Effectively, this means that we must decrease greenhouse gas emissions at least equal to a decrease in particulate pollution, or warming could jump rapidly and radically.

Methane Issues
While some say that global dimming may be an unexpected significant factor in warming, methane could be even more of an issue. This is due to a variety of reasons. First, methane is approximately ten times more potent than CO2 as a global warming gas. Therefore, even moderate increases in methane could have a magnified effect. Second, methane increases it effects with climatic warming(Schmidt, 9/2004.) Third, the more methane in the atmosphere the longer it takes to degrade. Fourth, there are two huge natural methane sources that are also affected by warming - methane calthrate crystals in the ocean and the melting of the permafrost. Schmidt notes that a Swedish study found methane increases of 20-60% over a 30 year period from melting permafrost.

The methane crystals in the ocean possibly pose the most significant methane release. The crystals form within a narrow temperature (2-4C), and pressure range. It is speculated that warming oceans could cause massive release of methane from its ocean resting place. It is estimated that the ocean holds 3000 times the amount of methane than there is atmospheric methane.

Conclusion
The problem we face is that we really don't know a lot of things. We don't understand the chemical reactions happening in the atmosphere. We don't know the interacting effects of temperature changes and how that effects chemical processes in relationship to warming factors. What does seem to be clear is that complacency is deadly. Just the interaction of global dimming and global warming shows how unpredictable climatic change might be.

Stephen Hawkings recently said that the Earth could climatically become Venus. Now that would truly be global warming run amok. I doubt that we will see that, but the future of the effects of global warming once said to be more than a hundred years away is rushing at us faster and faster. What we do know should catapult us to action.