Covid-19 Lockdowns Warmed Up Earth Even Faster (Temporarily)

[Economy 52,860]

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/pollution-decreased-but-the-planet-warmed-during-covid-19-lockdowns

 

Earths temperature saw unusually high increases which coincided with the peak of lockdowns in the spring. Tho seasonal and annual temperatures can have short term aberations many scientists think the lockdown did indeed cause the temperature spike

 

The explanation may be quite simple... Our human industrial age emissions have both a warming and cooling effect simultaneously. That is because many gases trap heat and warm up the planet yet many block or deflect some sunlight which are known as aresols. Some gases do a bit of both. The hazy pollution over a city does both for example. Less sunlight gets thru but all those gases also trap heat at the same time

 

On a net basis over the long term you get more warming effect than cooling effect...

 

A big factor too is that aerosol effects are shorter... a city that stops polluting in as little as 2 days will loose sunlight blockage as skies clear up but that heat trapping carbon dioxide will take many decades to be cleared up from atmosphere

 

Aerosols that have a cooling effect clear up pretty fast while heat tralpping effects take many decades or centuries (depending on amount accumulated) to clear up so in the short term when pollution stops you actually get an increase in temperature because you loose the cooling effect but not the warming effect as much

 

However over the longer term the drop in pollution in 2020 should still be a very small net positive against climate change but of course on the grand scheme of things barely make a dent

[FATCAT 60,888]

Long story short, humans are screwing up the earth in ways we can't even predict because our pollution is not just carbon emissions, it's a cluster-**** of everything we've ever made.

[Ricksies 527]

I'm glad mother nature had a tiny rest. Even if it won't make a difference.

Mostly it is the people and big corporations that need to change their ways of living to save our planet. I hope that we do before it's too late.

[Economy 52,860]

19 minutes ago, FATCAT said:

Long story short, humans are screwing up the earth in ways we can't even predict because our pollution is not just carbon emissions, it's a cluster-**** of everything we've ever made.

It never ends.

 

I read about how solar panels in some regions may actually make global warming worse (depending on the level of reflectivity on ground of space its taking) such as the sahara desert with reflective sand where they wanna buikd many solar pannels... solar pannels being dark absorb a lot more sunlight than ground which reflect some of it. Since solar pannels are only 10% to 15% efficient so far the other 85% to 90% of energy absorbed gets released as heat. Tho still less bad than carbon from fossil fuels, its an offset that makes the net benefit so far less than many hoped

 

And windmills use a synthetic gas in controls that are hugely worse for heat trapping than CO2 and even menthaine. Its leaking in tiny amounts compared to CO2 or methaine so so far its not as bad but because its symthetic it doesnt get cleared up from atmosphete naturally after some decades it will accumulate and take thousands of years to break down so if not resolved this will be another problem

 

I dunno. It seems like our solutions are never truly long term solutions. Were still f#cking up the planet