Local cooling makes some think global warming is a sham

We’ve known for a while now that many manmade particles in the air trap heat from the sun in our atmosphere, which creates a global warming effect. But scientists are discovering that some regions may experience temporary cooling as clouds of aerosols form and reflect light from the sun for short periods of time. That means some people in the shadow of those clouds may pull on a jacket and call global warming a bunch of bull.

The secondary aerosols manifest when manmade chemicals merge with natural compounds emitted from forests, especially during the hot summer months. Right now our climate models don’t do a good job of accounting for the effects of organic aerosols, especially when they interact with manmade byproducts.

This discovery was fueled by data from satellites orbiting Earth and sunphotometers on the ground, according to Science Daily. UC Berkeley Professor Allen Goldstein says “this is the first time a study has shown that the aerosols formed from the combination of manmade and natural emissions observed from space are relevant for understanding earth's climate.”

Right now the effects have mostly been observed in the southeastern United States, where scientists noticed a thicker haze than was normal even after accounting for manmade particles. But anyone cultivating a sense of ease based on these discoveries would be grasping for straws.

The cooling effect of the organic aerosols we are reporting here are regional and temporal; they are dwarfed by the changes in the climate we are witnessing globally. Aerosols only remain in the atmosphere for five to 10 days, whereas carbon dioxide lingers for decades.

To actually counteract the effects of carbon in our atmosphere we would need to inject so much aerosol that it would be difficult to breathe and our sky would change to a different color. Pretty drastic side effects, which makes flooding the atmosphere with aerosols an unrealistic solution. Global warming is real, it’s time to accept that and address it with change.