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The results of a new study show that large-scale air purification Sulfur dioxide is causing global warming to accelerate in China and other Asian countries.
Previous studies have considered the effect of reducing sulfur dioxide emissions from maritime transport. However, this analysis began only in 2020 and its results do not currently have a significant impact on global temperature rise.
At the same time, NASA experts have suggested that changes in cloud cover and a decrease in cloud cover may play a role in the tropics or over the North Pacific. Meanwhile, one of the key factors that has not yet been properly assessed is the large-scale efforts of East Asian countries, including China, to combat air pollution.
Since 2013, sulphur dioxide emissions in East Asia have decreased by 75%. At the same time, the pace of work for air purification emissions continue to rise, which correlates with the acceleration of global temperature rise on the planet. The researchers are looking at the link between improved air quality in East Asia and global temperatures, drawing on 8 teams of climate modelers around the world.
«We found that polluted air could hide the full effects of global warming. Cleaner air can now show most of the anthropogenic global warming caused by greenhouse gases. The level of air pollution was so high that it managed to curb anthropogenic warming by up to 0.5°C in recent centuries», — the authors of the study emphasize, Professor at the National Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Reading, Laura Wilcox and Senior Researcher in Climate and Atmospheric Sciences at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo Björn H. Samseth.
The research team used 160 computer simulations based on 8 global climate models. This allowed the researchers to more accurately assess the impact of polluted air in East Asia on global temperature rise and precipitation.
«We modeled a cleanup of pollution similar to what has been happening in the real world since 2010. We found an additional global warming of about 0.07 °C. Although this is a small amount compared to the overall global warming of about 1.3 °C since 1850, it is still enough to explain the recent acceleration of global warming if we exclude annual temperature fluctuations from natural cycles such as El Niño, a climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean that affects on weather conditions around the world», — the researchers emphasize.
Scientists emphasize that this explains why, instead of the expected temperature increase of 0.23°C since 2010, an increase of 0.33°C was actually recorded. Much of the additional 0.1°C increase is due to large-scale air pollution control measures in East Asia, but other factors include a reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions from maritime transport, the recent accelerated growth of methane concentration in the atmosphere.
Air pollution causes cooling by reflecting sunlight or by changing the properties of clouds to reflect more sunlight. Cleaner air in East Asia affects global temperatures because it reduces the effect of pollution that creates shading over East Asia Fewer pollutants are carried by the North Pacific Ocean, which means that clouds in the Eastern Pacific reflect less sunlight.
It is also worth noting that, following 40 years of research, scientists from Michigan State University in the United States found that plants secrete isoprene to protect against insects. Isoprene, at the same time,increases the level of air pollution. Scientists have found that some plants that do not normally produce isoprene can start doing so in extreme cases.
Source: The Conversation; ScienceAlert