Global Dimming

What’s with that title? Maybe another typo or maybe a reference to the dumbing of the electorate? Hardly.

Global dimming is the reduction of heat from the sun reaching the earth.

You’ve seen the manifestation of the causes of global dimming if you’ve ever flown in a plane or been to a high viewpoint and looked to the horizon where that sickly orange/brown haze hugs the horizon everywhere on the planet.

The dimming isn’t due to some intergalactic light dimmer (rheostat) switch increasing resistance to flow of the sun's energy. The real contributors to global dimming include the products of incomplete fossil fuel (coal, oil, gas) combustion, the black carbon from burning of wood, jet contrails, airborne volcanic ash, and aerosols.

Is global dimming anything to really fret about? Some scientists now consider that the effects of global dimming have masked the effect of faster than predicted global warming and that resolving global dimming may, therefore, lead to increased future planetary temperature rise. Some scientists have postulated that global dimming has...

"contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more with hunger and starvation.”

That conclusion was broadcast in the 2005 BBC documentary on climate change that is summarized here. A very extensive discussion of the global dimming is also available.

It’s a topic worth your review. Knowledge is power.