Contrary to many breathless headlines published throughout the pandemic that favor the benefits of closures for the environment, the planet was actually warmer as a result, a new article has found.
According to the latest research led by the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), emissions of airborne particles, or aerosols, which block incoming sunlight and send it back into space, have dropped significantly in industrialized countries around the world. small but significant rise in temperatures.
Emissions of aerosols fell during the spring exclusion of 2020, in line with the sharp decline in major industrial activities around the world, enabling more sunlight to reach the earth, raising temperatures in industrialized countries such as the United States and Russia
“There has been a huge decrease in emissions from the most polluting industries, and this has had immediate short-term effects on temperature,” he said. says NCAR scientist Andrew Gettelman, lead author of the study.
“Pollution cools the planet, so it makes sense that reducing pollution will warm the planet.”
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In some areas the temperature was between 0.2 and 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit (0.1 and 0.3 degrees Celsius) warmer than expected for that time of year and given the prevailing weather conditions.
Warming has reached about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.37 C) in many parts of the United States and Russia, as aerosols tend to brighten clouds and emit more sun rays in space, while carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases isolate the planet. and the sun’s energy closer to the surface.
Gettelman stressed that the long-term effects of the pandemic and the subsequent closures will slow down the rate of climate change slightly due to the more gradual impact of reduced CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, despite the short-term warming in certain parts of the planet.
Gettelman and his co-authors from the universities of Oxford, Imperial College and Leeds conducted simulations using two of the world’s leading climate models, the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model and a model known as ECHAM-HAMMOZ, and adapted for aerosol levels during the 2020 exclusions.
The warming effect visible in their models was strongest in the middle and upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, mixed near the equator and mostly negligible in the southern hemisphere, in line with the distribution of aerosol-producing, industrialized countries.
If someone did not get too carried away by the research, Gettelman was quickly pointed out that it would be a catastrophically bad idea to pump more aerosols into the atmosphere to ward off climate change.
“Aerosol releases have major health consequences,” he said. “To say we have to pollute is not practical.”
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