Dust in the atmosphere may have concealed the full degree of global warming

 

January 17, 2023 10:00 GMT

                                  Over the past few decades, dust from storms in arid regions and billowing up from deserts has helped keep the planet cool. However, the true extent of global warming brought on by fossil fuel emissions may have been hidden by this dust's presence in the atmosphere.

According to one estimate, atmospheric dust has grown by around 55% since the middle of the 1800s. And up to 8% of the warmth caused by carbon emissions may have been disguised by the rising dust.

Analyzing the numerous, intricate ways that dust has impacted global climate patterns, atmospheric scientists and climate experts from the US and Europe have come to the conclusion that, generally, dust has helped to attenuate the warming impacts of greenhouse gases. The study, which was published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, issues a warning that the impact of air dust is not taken into consideration by existing climate models.

When it comes to greenhouse warming, "we've been predicting for a long time that we're moving into a horrible spot," said Jasper Kok, an atmospheric physicist at UCLA and the study's lead author. This study demonstrates that we have been using the emergency brake thus far.

According to experts, our atmosphere contains around 26 million tonnes of suspended dust. It has complex impacts.

Dust and artificial particle pollution both have the ability to chill the earth in different ways. These mineral fragments have the ability to deflect sunlight away from the Earth and disperse cirrus clouds, which are responsible for warming the globe. The growth of phytoplankton, which are microscopic plants in the ocean that absorb carbon dioxide and create oxygen, is stimulated by dust that enters the water.

In rare circumstances, dust can also have a warming impact by darkening snow and ice and causing them to absorb more heat.

But when they added it all up, it was apparent to the scientists that the dust had a general cooling impact.

Gisela Winckler, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, explained that a variety of variables influence the function of mineral dusts in our atmosphere. The first review of its sort to truly include all these many facets is this one.

Although Winckler said the analysis made apparent that these projections haven't been able to narrow down the function of dust particularly effectively, climate models have been able to anticipate global warming with a fair amount of precision up to this point.

Since pre-industrial times, dust has likely been growing generally as well, possibly as a result of development, agriculture, and other human activities on the landscape, according to the few evidence from ice cores, marine sediment records, and other sources. But during the 1980s, there also appears to be a decrease in the amount of dust.

Winckler stated that more information and study are required to fully comprehend these dust patterns and to accurately forecast how they will alter over the ensuing years.

However, if there is less atmospheric dust, the rate at which greenhouse gases warm the planet might increase.

Because of this, Kok said, "We could start to see faster and faster warming." And perhaps we are only now becoming aware of that fact.

Under the terms of a Creative Commons licence, this article has been taken from The Guardian. Go here to read the original article.