What is your opinion on Global Dimming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming)?

Essentially, global dimming is a result of pollution, just like global warming. Here's how it works. When something is used to make energy, it produces, among other things, visible pollution and greenhouse gases. The small particulate visible pollution makes it's way into clouds. Since the particles are smaller than the normal particles that make up rain, clouds tend to be made up of smaller water droplets. These water droplets act like mirrors which reflect a percentage of the sun's energy back out into space. This produces a cooling effect on the Earth, reflecting up to 10% of the sun's energy back out into space.

Global warming counters this effect. The invisible greenhouse gases reflect the infrared energy the Earth emits back at the Earth, creating a warming effect.

Here's the problem, the global dimming trend is starting to decrease. The main suspected reason would be a noticeable decrease of visible pollution from the use catalytic converters, decrease in use of aerosols, and the use of scrubbers. However, greenhouse gas emissions have not decreased as much. This could be the reason why the global warming effect might be increasing. Think of it this way. Global Warming and Global Dimming are in a tug of war match. Global Dimming is trying to cool the Earth while Global Warming is trying to warm the Earth. If a decrease in visible particulate pollution causes a decrease in the Global Dimming effect, then the Global Warming effect is potentially a lot stronger than we had previously anticipated, all because we have curbed particulate pollution while not reducing greenhouse gas emissions as significantly. This means that we could see stronger consequences from Global Warming a lot sooner than we thought. A PBS program (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/) I watched says we're within a decade of the point of no return.

Some scientists believe that Global Dimming has masked the effects of Global Warming. If they are correct, then we have effected our environment a lot more than previously thought.

What do you think?
~Wonder :sunny:

I think that humans learn a lot more after the damage is done than before. I'm not sure about this global dimming vs glabal warming theory but I do know that we keep screwing things up and there isn't much we can do about it. We do our little part here and there but it seems we need like a big catastrophe of some kind to really wake us up.

I think that humans learn a lot more after the damage is done than before. I'm not sure about this global dimming vs glabal warming theory but I do know that we keep screwing things up and there isn't much we can do about it. We do our little part here and there but it seems we need like a big catastrophe of some kind to really wake us up.
I agree, hindsight is 20/20, but foresight has more potential. It seems to me that Global Dimming(visible pollution reflecting sunlight back into space) and Global Warming(greenhouse gases trapping energy) go hand in hand; burning fuels produces greenhouse gases and visible pollution (ie soot). The effects of Global Dimming have already been seen just like the effects of Global Warming have already been seen. It's just that the effects of Global Dimming have been masking the magnitude of our Global Warming dilemma. And now we are controlling our visible pollution via scrubbers, catalytic converters, etc. which not curbing our greenhouse gas emissions as much.

Since people have just been focusing on Global Warming and not Global Dimming, we are being blinded to the true extent our greenhouse gas emissions are really having. Global Warming might be a lot worse than the current estimates because those estimates don't take Global Dimming into account. It's like checking the current temperature and ignoring the wind chill.
~Wonder :guitar:

The theory does seem to make sense -- I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't know enough about it to offer any comment of value. I really wouldn't be surprised if things were worse than they appear to most of us right now.