Forty years ago in Israel a trained biologist Dr. Gerald Stanhill began an operation to measure how strongly the sun shone over Israel. His results didn’t only produce figures that helped biologist to understand how much water plants needed but also the level of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth in the Middle East. His results became vital twenty years later to prove the theory of global dimming. In 1980 his results were compared to present day sun light levels and the conclusion was made that the sun light level over Israel had dropped by twenty-two percent. At the time the obvious consequence of this twenty-two percent drop in sunlight reaching the surface of the earth in the Middle-East region was that the regional temperature would drop. This did not occur. He published his results but the science community gave no response and did not believe his theory.
The most skeptic theory was the fact that less energy from the sun was reaching the surface of the earth should be making the world cooler but the carbon dioxide emission is increasing the global temperature. Trapping more heat in the world’s atmosphere and cause global warming. This concept was regarded as unacceptable because millions of dollars were spent on global warming research funding and therefore the results were dismissed.
Not only the concept of global dimming was dismissed but also results create by pan evaporation rate. Professor Graham Farquhar of the Australian National University concluded that Australia was experiencing a paradoxical result of worldwide decline in pan evaporation. Result had been recorded over the past hundred years in areas all over the world. The results have a long term value. The main conclusion based on the results was that global pan evaporation rate was decreasing as the global temperature was increasing. The logical reasoning was that higher global temperatures cause an increase in pan evaporation rate. Calculations showed that the fundamental reason for the decrease in pan evaporation is the decrease in sun light levels reaching the earth’s surface as well as humidity and wind. The energy of the photons hitting the surface of the earth that give the water molecules energy to evaporate is decreasing. These results are considered as evidence for global dimming. The results show that the sun evaporates 100 ml less water compared to over thirty years ago. The conclusion of the experiment and results corresponded to that of Dr. Gerald Stanhill in Israel.
A multinational effort to distinguish whether global dimming existed and if so how much of an affect it would have on our world’s climate and metrological patterns. The decrease in sunlight was seen to have just been caused by pollution in the world’s atmosphere. The dominant factor in the particle pollution was soot and sulphur dioxide. The aim of carrying out this experiment in the Maldives was that the north received highly polluted air from India and the most southern tip received cool clean air from Antarctica. Both areas were with in the same region but experienced completely different air quality. Particle pollution was considerably unknown to scientists. The visible pollution particles emitted as green house gasses added to the drastic affect of global dimming. They discovered that there was a three-kilometer thick layer of polluted cloud over the northern islands of Maldives. The clouds block sunlight from reaching the earth’s surface or reflect the sunrays. The highly polluted clouds reflect sun light with an increase of ten percent. The polluted clouds act like giant mirrors. Rain only forms when water vapor in the atmosphere starts to condense on the surface of natural occurring air born particles like pollen or sea salt. Water droplets enlarge and then fall as rain. Particle pollution consequently creates rain more often and easier. Currently there are ten times more pollution particles in the atmosphere. Air pollution cause more often rain that what would naturally occur. Concluding that more small droplets reflect more sun light than fewer big ones. So polluted clouds are reflecting more sun light back into space, preventing heat from the sun getting through therefore cooling the earth’s surface. The polluted clouds shield the oceans from the sun light therefore decrease pan evaporation rate. There is a direct link between global dimming and whether disturbances and global warming.
Ethiopia is considered as a less economically developed country and is experiencing the negative effects of America’s and other western country adverse impact their industries. The green house gasses generated in more economically developed countries Europe North America and Asia don’t necessarily become affect by their own adverse industries but instead countries in northern Africa. The visible pollution generated by more economically developed countries inflicts disaster on a biblical scale. When investigating the affects of global dimming scientists discovered a major anomaly of global weather patterns and rainfall. Normally summer heat forces rain clouds belts north of the equator to create the seasonal monsoon over northern Africa. Because of the increase in global dimming the surface of the oceans have not received sufficient heat to evaporate and shift north to northern Africa. Between 1970 and 1980 the monsoon failed consistently in northern Africa. Major drought occurred Ethiopia cause death on a biblical proportion.
China is considered a less economically developed country but is presently experiencing a vast expansion in its export industry. Their national economy is skyrocketing. Along with the positive effect of developing an economy, China is one of the top three countries along side India and America producing the most greenhouse gasses and visible pollution particles that cause both global dimming and global warming in the world. Satellite picture show China’s ever growing contribution in the increase in both global warming and global dimming.
In order to resolve the problem of global dimming an international response needs to be made and the factors of global dimming need to be reduced at an equal rate to that of the factors of global warming. The steps taken to reduce particle pollution have bettered air quality and even a reduction in global dimming to a dangerous level over the past few years. Western Europeans have begun to use catalytic converts in their cars and scrubber on industrial chimneys. Less economically developed countries are being worst affected even though more economically developed countries are actually generating the visible particle pollution. Very minor steps are being taken by America in reducing the factor for both global dimming and global warming. America are one very few major economical countries which have not signed the Kyoto treaty therefore not obligated to reach certain standards of pollution emissions. The reduction in air born pollution particles have lead to a drop in global dimming. This has mainly been experienced in Europe. In the summer of 2003 temperatures soared over forty degrees Celsius. Thousands of elderly people died in Spain and France. Forest fires began and the glaciers in Switzerland and Germany began to melt. The penalty of reducing global dimming without tackling the root causes of global warming is making global warming even worse. Below is a world map showing the countries, which have signed the Kyoto treaty. The Kyoto Treaty is an agreement between countries to restrain greenhouse gas emissions. Countries colored green have signed the treaty and are keeping within the confinements of the treaty. America is labeled red showing that they have not signed the treaty. This is obvious evidence of their disregard to other countries, which suffer from their polluting industries. Less economically developed countries like Ethiopia endure decades of drought and uninhabitable landscape due to America’s selfishness and industries.
Kyoto Treaty
The global temperature has risen on a formidable scale from an annual average low of –0.58 in 1912 to a peak of 0.58 degrees Celsius in 1999. The five-year average shows a more accurate and clear increase in global temperatures.
Now it is proven that green house gasses or global warming has been heating our planet and global dimming has been cooling it down. The two factors are completely dependent on one another. The present situation according to the climatologist Dr. Peter Cox is where the cooling pollutants causing global dimming are dropping while the warming pollutants of global warming are rising. The amount of pollutant particles are dropping and the carbon dioxide emissions are increasing. Our climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide levels than what scientists originally thought. So the models create to estimate the future of our climate are completely off. Temperatures are predicted to rise twice as fast as previously thought. There will be irreversible damage by twenty-five years from now. By the year 2030 global warming will have cause an increase in global temperatures by two degrees Celsius. Sea levels will rise by approximately eight meters. By the year 2040 the global temperature will have risen by four degrees Celsius and make the rain forests of the Amazon inhabitable and unsustainable. The vast amount of carbon dioxide released by forest fires in the Amazon will further worsen the affect of global warming. Within only one century the world’s average temperature will have become ten degrees Celsius hotter. This climate change will be the most rapid alteration to the planets climate in the history of the earth. If we reduce our particle pollution drastically and do nothing about green house gas emissions, our present day will not be considered as a prediction but of a warning of what is inevitable. Nations worldwide need to tackle the root causes of global dimming as well as global warming by reducing them at an equal rate to save future generation and nature.
The temperature increase will cause the release of a vast natural store of greenhouse gas larger than all the oil and coal reserves of our planet. The destabilization of methane hydrates under the ocean will cause global warming to reach a formidable level. At this point, nothing can be done to prevent it. Ten thousand billion tons of methane which is a greenhouse gas eight times as strong as carbon dioxide is due to be release into the atmosphere because of the incline in global temperatures. The climate will reach temperatures inexperienced in four billion years. This is not a prediction – it is a warning. Just keep on polluting and hope global dimming will protect us, would be suicidal.
Bibliography
MLA Citation (Web Site)
Wikipedia. Instrumental Temperature Record. 8 June 2007. 10 June 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png >.
BBC Bitesize. Global dimming. 18 May 2007. 8 June 2007 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/aqa/rocks/fuelsrev8.shtml>.
Wikipedia. Kyoto Treaty. 5 June 2007. 10 June 2007 <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/
thumb/1/1e/Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png/
800px-Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png>.
Wikipedia. Pollution over east China. 8 June 2007. 10 June 2007 < http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Pollution_over_east_China.jpg >.
MLA Citation (Film or Video Recording)
BBC Four Horizon. Global Dimming. 2004.
