An increase in effective radiative forcing from human activity is now said to be mostly driven by a decline in aerosol pollution, superseding the effects of CO2 emissions.
The majority of an alleged acceleration in anthropogenic global warming in the 21st century “is driven by changes in the the aerosol [effective radiative forcing] trend, due to aerosol emissions reductions” (Jenkins et al., 2022).
Image Source: Jenkins et al., 2022
This is supported by other studies reporting a direct radiative forcing increase of +1.59 W/m² over the US from 1996-2019 and +2.0 W/m² impact over Europe from 1980-2018 (Augustine and Hodges, 2021, Kejna et al., 2021) due to these countries reducing their sulphate aerosol emissions through policy initiatives.
Image Source: Augustine and Hodges and Kejna et al., 2021
Considering it reportedly takes 10 years and 22 ppm for CO2 to exert a total surface forcing impact of just 0.2 W/m², reducing our aerosol emissions has a much larger impact on Earth’s radiation budget than reducing our CO2 emissions.
So if we want to more efficiently (and with far less cost) reduce global warming, apparently what we need to do is increase our aerosol pollution rates.
The science is now settled. Right?
In one of his lectures, Richard Feynman told researchers to eliminate all other possibilities of an effect before telling the world of their newest hypothesis.
This appears to be one of the possibilities that should have been seriously considered before the U. N. and others had their CO2 eureka moment.
So we have to go back to roll-on deodorant?
No clouds – warming, many clouds – cooling. Has anybody been outside?
[…] Now It’s Claimed Anthropogenic Global Warming Is Driven By Aerosol Emissions Reductions, Not CO2 […]
SO2 emissions were still rising from 1975 to 1980 accompanied by LOBAL WARMING, not global cooling, as the SO2 theory claims.
SO2 emissions falling since 1980 were accompanied by several periods with NO GLOBAL WARMING. The most recent period is the past 8 years with no change in the UAH global average temperature — a flat trend line.
Since 1975 there have been far too many periods of five years or more that DO NOT SHOW the expected effect of SO2 emissions. therefore, SO2 emissions must be a minor climate change variable.
So, reduced aerosol and particulate emissions from burning of coal and other fossil fuels is now the problem? I’ve been saying for a while that decreased levels of soot and visible smog over Western cities must be allowing more solar radiation to reach the surface, not to mention contributing to reduced cloud formation.
Just Stop Oil must be tying themselves in knots over this.
And so the lies go on !!! When will people read up on the science of our weather and understand what is going on ???
[…] […]
[…] Billet inspiré d’un article de Pierre Gosselin paru sur son site :https://notrickszone.com/2022/11/10/now-its-claimed-anthropogenic-global-warming-is-driven-by-aeroso… […]
Hi Kenneth, I am a fan of your work, really, but i feel very sorry with the perspective of this article.
Jenkins et al., 2022, like others, are talking about antrophogenic aerosols and aerosol–cloud interactions. If you release from atmosphere the antrophogenic particles that provides artificial cooling, atmosphere temperature increases more.
What you are defending is a kind of earth geo engineering in order to continue pumping GHGs into the atmosphere. SOx are being removed because cause health condition on people.
I don’t think its the solution. I think its better working on black carbon, HCFs and CH4, that are easier to reduce than CO2.
Regards.
Correct. I think you are assuming I am endorsing the perspective that human aerosol emissions are what significantly impact climate. I’m instead exposing the flagrant incompatibility of claiming AGW is driven by GHG emissions when the alleged radiation budget changes from aerosol emissions easily override CO2 emissions as a driver per this paper and many others like it.
My own view is that human SO2 and sulphate aerosol pollution/emissions don’t even play more than a very minor role in global-scale climate. The bulk of atmospheric aerosol changes are derived from volcanism, not human activity.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015RG000511
“While a contribution from anthropogenic SO2 emissions has been intensely debated since the early 1990s, the stratospheric sulfur and aerosol budget are clearly dominated by natural sources, such as direct volcanic injections of large amounts of SO2 and aerosols, which stand out as the largest source over the past decades.”
“Despite limited periods without volcanic influence, the analysis of nonvolcanic stratospheric aerosol indicated that there was no long-term trend in background (nonvolcanic) aerosol levels.”
Hi Kenneth,
thanks for your answer.
“I’m instead exposing the flagrant incompatibility of claiming AGW is driven by GHG emissions when the alleged radiation budget changes from aerosol emissions easily override CO2 emissions as a driver per this paper and many others like it.”
i still don’t get your point. According to any radiative forcing schema by emissions and drivers relative to 1750, there are anthropogenic GHGs and anthrogenic short lived gases and aerosols components, and both of them affect the climate (i am not claiming climate is driven by those components).
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/radiative-forcing-estimates-in-2011