When it comes to aerosol pollution, as the old real estate adage says, location is everything.
Aerosols are tiny particles that are spewed into the atmosphere by human activities, including burning coal and wood. They have negative effects on air quality—damaging human health and agricultural productivity.
While greenhouse gases cause warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere, some aerosols can have a cooling effect on the climate—similar to how emissions from a major volcanic eruption can cause global temperatures to drop. This occurs because the aerosol particles cause more of the Sun’s light to be reflected away from the planet. Estimates indicate that aerosols have offset about a third of greenhouse gas-driven warming since the 1950s.
However, aerosols have a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than the gases responsible for global warming. This means that their atmospheric distribution varies by region, especially in comparison to carbon dioxide.
Continue reading at Carnegie Science
Image via Carnegie Science
