Scientists claim that sulphate aerosols reduce global warming
SULPHATE aerosols are not all bad.
Meteorologists now say tharsulphate
aerosols help mitigate global warming.
Researchers from the UK Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre have
developed a computer model that simulates the way in which aerosols mitigate
Predicted (1860-2050) and observed
the process of global warming. The scientists claim that the general Circulation Model replicates the observed
temperatur ,e changes in the past 130
years and it "could be an important step
forward in climate prediction science"
(Nature, Vol 374, No 6522).
Previous studies by the International Panel on Climate Change reported that the temperature should have
gone up by 0.6 to 1.3'c due to green-house gases, However, experiments
based on the new model, which takes
into account the emissions of natural
and human-made sulphates, produced a
simulated temperature rise close to the
observed value of 0.5c.
Says David Bermetts of the
Hadley Centre, "What we have
done is reduce the uncertainties
of the models. The important
thing is that you can put the
71 aerosols in, and the model
1860 18801900 1920 1940 19601980 2000 2020 2040
appears to behave close to what
is observed".
Scientists, however, acknowledge that more work needs
to be done on the fact that
regional calculations within the
model show a greiner variability
from observed temperature
Changes than the global model.
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