Aerosols from burning fossil fuels are masking global warming, UW researchers find
Climate change will become worse before it gets better.
According to research led by scientists at the University of Washington, eliminating greenhouse gases would stabilize the planet in the long term, but the subsequent loss of aerosols — small particles suspended in the atmosphere — could temporarily trigger alarming temperatures sooner than expected.
Aerosols come from natural sources — volcanic eruptions, for example — but can also be produced through the burning of fossil fuels and wood. They have a cooling effect on our atmosphere thanks to their ability to disperse sunlight and influence cloud formations.
The study published Monday says there’s a 42% chance the planet will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels within the next decade even if worldwide emissions were eliminated today. If the world stopped emitting in 2029, that probability rises to 66%.
“If we were to reduce our emissions very rapidly, we lose that cooling effect of the aerosols much faster than we would lose the warming effect of CO2,” said Kyle Armour, a co-author of the report and an associate professor of oceanography and atmospheric sciences at the UW. “Because the aerosol pollution is currently masking some global warming that would otherwise occur, what that means it that at any given time, the Earth is committed to more warming than we’ve actually seen.”
The findings strongly suggest fossil fuels need to be phased out sooner than previously understood.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.