Study suggests declining pollution is one cause behind decadeslong drop in Earth’s reflectivity
, it underscored the warnings of some prominent climate scientists, including James Hansen, that the pace of global warming was accelerating and had entered a dangerous new phase. A new study,
The study was prompted by a set of NASA instruments in space that since 2001 have tracked the delicate balance of energy entering and leaving the planet. Over the past decade, the instruments, called the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System , have detected ain the amount of solar energy the planet has absorbed—well beyond the warming expected from rising greenhouse gases. The readings show the planet has become less reflective, as if it recently put on a darker shirt.
However, falling pollution may not be the only reason for the brighter skies detected by CERES, a trend that kicked up after 2015. The models were unable to explain up to 40% of the extra absorbed light, and the CERES data show reflectivity falling in both hemispheres, whereas pollution has fallen the most in the north.
With six instruments mounted on four satellites, CERES radiometers measure reflected sunlight and infrared heat while also imaging the scene observed, including cloud cover. The system’s measurement errors make small changes hard to discern. But in the past few years, “it’s been clear that the trends of the CERES data have come out of the noise,” says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
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