I caught an interesting feature on BBC last night. You see, much has been said about the green house gases that causes global warming. However, another phenomenon recently observed has been found out to cause disruptive changes to climate conditions as well: global dimming.
It reportedly caused the great famine in Ethiopia in 1984 when the monsoon rains failed to come in the Sahel. It is likely to happen again, this time, in the heavily populated Asian region where monsoon rains are the lifeblood of the largely agriculture-dependent inhabitants, if nothing is done to halt its ever taking place again.
Independent studies from Israel, Germany and Australia have found a deceleration in the evaporation rates as well as the level of solar radiation, which leads to a “cooling effect”. This of course, was a paradox on account of the global warming phenomenon which was supposed to heat up the planet.
The culprit was found to be air pollution. Impure particles attributed to air pollution blocks out the sun from penetrating the earth’s surface, even reflecting back the light into space, thus the “dimming”. The consequence altered the direction of the tropical monsoon rains in Africa since the cooling off the oceans in the Northern hemisphere, due for the most part to the air pollution radiating from Europe and North America, prevented monsoon clouds from forming.
Unfortunately, the dimming phenomenon was found to be shielding the planet from the more potentially devastating solar radiation on account of global warming. This does not mean an endorsement to pollute, however, since it has clearly catastrophic consequences.
It seems that the planet is in a no-win situation, isn’t it?
It’s a pity that the US, the world’s biggest polluter, chose not to ratify the Kyoto agreement that would have secured commitments from US industries to reduce effluents.
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