It’s important to clean up the air off pollutants that harm the environment and make it unfit for breathing as it causes many respiratory diseases, but under certain circumstances, particulate substances in the air can reflect some sunlight back into space and create a cooling effect in a particular region. This was discovered by scientists when they studies conditions in Eastern US. Their study revealed that tiny particles in the air created a ‘warming hole’ over the eastern United States and that has been the cause for the delay in climate change over the region.
Researchers have found that a cold patch has been formed over the eastern United States due to the thick particulate pollution in the region. This outcome of air pollution has been observed earlier too, but the current investigation reveals the magnitude of the impact that reduction in particulate pollution can have on the climate change of an area. The researchers further found out that when the clouds came in contact with the air particles, they augmented the cooling. Particles of pollution reflect even more sunlight, when they are mingled with the cloud droplets, than the particles would do independently, thus creating a greater cooling at the surface. It has been found that this particulate pollution has delayed the warming in the eastern US, which was otherwise expected to be seen due to the increased emission of greenhouse gases.
The researchers have now taken steps to cut down on the harmful emissions of the greenhouse gases that give way to particulate pollution just for the sake of protecting the environment, but these cuts have in turn caused greenhouse warming in the region to ramp up. This analysis also gives a significant insight about the climatic conditions and chnages of other industrial countries across the worlds that have not yet regulated the quality of air to the same extent as the United States.
Via: Seasharvard
