Nova has aired a show several times this week about global dimming. It’s related to global warming in that we are the cause of this dimming. This is some SCARY stuff.
Scientists have discovered that the intensity of the sunlight hitting the earth has been decreasing. People have been doing these evaporation experiments for years (something likes over 30 years) where they have a pan of water they use to measure evaporation rate. It’s a simple experiment where they fill the pan back up everyday and measure how much water it takes to fill it back to a certain level.
It's been baffling because the earth is heating up from global warming, but the evaporation rate is decreasing. But the evaporation is related to the intensity of the sun’s rays more than it is the heat, or wind, or humidity, or anything else. They discovered the decrease in the intensity is related to water droplets in clouds.
Clouds used to have larger water droplets. Today, the droplets are smaller and there are far more of them. Since water condenses on particles in the air, this makes sense if particle density increases. Well, it turns out that many tiny droplets reflect solar rays more than fewer, larger droplets. The pollution we are dumping in the air is the cause of all this.
There was a scientist who wanted to test this theory, but the problem was that we didn’t stop polluting long enough for him to do any tests. All that changed on 9-11 when America was attacked and virtually all air traffic was grounded. For 3 days, there were virtually no jet contrails in the sky. He showed how extensive the contrails were on normal days over California. About 70% of the sky was covered by contrails that had spread out.
He collected temperature records from over 5,000 weather stations in 48 states and compared temperatures. He didn’t compare highs or lows, which can vary drastically from day to day, but he compared the temperature range (the difference in temps each day from high to low) which is normally very consistent. He found that the difference was 2 degrees (F) greater on those 3 days when no jets flew. He said it was the greatest range in 30 years of observation. The days were hotter, and the nights were colder. This makes sense because clouds help to trap heat at night, and if they reflect sunlight during the day, the days will be cooler.
Scientists have discovered that the intensity of the sunlight hitting the earth has been decreasing. People have been doing these evaporation experiments for years (something likes over 30 years) where they have a pan of water they use to measure evaporation rate. It’s a simple experiment where they fill the pan back up everyday and measure how much water it takes to fill it back to a certain level.
It's been baffling because the earth is heating up from global warming, but the evaporation rate is decreasing. But the evaporation is related to the intensity of the sun’s rays more than it is the heat, or wind, or humidity, or anything else. They discovered the decrease in the intensity is related to water droplets in clouds.
Clouds used to have larger water droplets. Today, the droplets are smaller and there are far more of them. Since water condenses on particles in the air, this makes sense if particle density increases. Well, it turns out that many tiny droplets reflect solar rays more than fewer, larger droplets. The pollution we are dumping in the air is the cause of all this.
There was a scientist who wanted to test this theory, but the problem was that we didn’t stop polluting long enough for him to do any tests. All that changed on 9-11 when America was attacked and virtually all air traffic was grounded. For 3 days, there were virtually no jet contrails in the sky. He showed how extensive the contrails were on normal days over California. About 70% of the sky was covered by contrails that had spread out.
He collected temperature records from over 5,000 weather stations in 48 states and compared temperatures. He didn’t compare highs or lows, which can vary drastically from day to day, but he compared the temperature range (the difference in temps each day from high to low) which is normally very consistent. He found that the difference was 2 degrees (F) greater on those 3 days when no jets flew. He said it was the greatest range in 30 years of observation. The days were hotter, and the nights were colder. This makes sense because clouds help to trap heat at night, and if they reflect sunlight during the day, the days will be cooler.
I wish it would warm up around here, damn cold wether is much worse ,just think of how much less pollution around if we didn't have to run our heat.(even Co2)