Wednesday, October 31, 2012

If you question any of this, it means you hate science: Chinese coal plants are causing the planet to dangerously overheat, and Chinese coal plants are also the reason that the planet hasn't warmed for 10 years

Short Sharp Science: Why global temperatures held steady for 10 years
Global warming temporarily ground to a halt over the last 10 years, thanks to increased pollution from China, the El Niño system in the Pacific, and a slight drop in the energy Earth gets from the sun.
...
The short answer is yes. In the model, global temperatures held steady, showing no significant rise over the study period.

A major reason for this is the rise in coal use in China. This produces a lot of sulphur particles, which cool the global climate. This more-or-less cancelled out the warming effect of the greenhouse gas emissions.

That shouldn't come as a surprise. It's well-established that aerosol particles can have a major impact on the climate. In south-east Asia, particularly China and India, there is often a "brown haze" of pollution that has an overall cooling effect on the planet.

No comments: