Our Current Understanding of the Impact of Aerosols on Climate Change. Kimberly A. Prather.
ChemSusChem:
2009
DOI: 10.1002/cssc.200900037
Notes
The impact of climate change on our planet represents one of the largest environmental concerns facing us today. As our global atmospheric temperatures continue to escalate, scientists and policy makers are grappling with finding the most effective ways to reduce the impact of humans on our environment. We must find a way to concurrently inspire and support basic fundamental scientific research while establishing policies to help alleviate the burden before our environment passes a dangerous tipping point. However, scientists are still working on improving predictive models and reducing many of the scientific uncertainties related to climate change. Our strongest understanding involves the impacts from the greenhouse gases. The largest warming impact comes from the most well studied greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, the notorious increase of which since the industrial revolution tracks the increase in the earth’s temperature. This correlation, along with theunique isotopic signature of CO2 from fossil fuels, p ints towards humans as the main source of this atmospheric gas. There is simply no question that humans are responsible for the increased temperatures we are experiencing today. The question is no longer, will it get warmer?, the question is, how fast will it warm and can we quickly find ways to control the critical components being introduced into our atmosphere? Importantly, the temperature changes we are feeling today can be attributed to CO2 that was emitted 50–100 years ago. Future generations will witness more substantial impacts from CO2 and other greenhouse gases being emitted today unless the world can unite and make the necessary changes very soon.
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