Viraj's Weblog

Here is a picture of the ocean on fire:

Yes, on fire! Imagine swimming in that. It's the result of methane gas being pumped from the bottom of the ocean.

I saw an interesting BBC show about Global Dimming. It started out with an interesting observation. After the 9/11 attack, virtually all planes were grounded for 3 days. During that time, temperature rose around the US by about 1 degree Celsius. Doesn't sound like much but to climate scientists, it's alot.

It had to do with airplane contrails not existing. The idea of global dimming is that pollution (in terms of particles) basically causes reflection of sunlight back out of the atmosphere. It reduces the temperature. It has other implications such as affecting rain/monsoon bands, and they say it was the cause of major drought in Ethiopia (and eventually the many deaths and save-an-Ethiopian commercials). If this were to affect monsoon bands in Asia, we are talking billions of people being affected.

What I find even more interesting is that global dimming offsets global warming. Countries that reduce pollution increase the affects of global warming. Scientists are saying that if we eliminate global dimming without reducing global warming as well, in 20 years temperature would rise 10 degrees Celsius. That basically means goodbye Florida and many other lowland areas due to glaciers melting and oceans rising.

So is the answer to just pump more pullutants to offset global warming? The problem with that is the pullutants are not very good for humans to breathe . Rain bands would also be affected, and the consequences of that are huge.