Thursday 27 February 2014

Global Warming - the solution

from the BBC

New research suggests a strong link between the powerful smell of pine trees and climate change.

Scientists say they've found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests.

These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form.

So, we just need everyone to put pine air fresheners in their cars and drive them around a lot to make sure that we get plenty of cloud coverage.

11 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

That was my first thought too, "Wot? Those silly little trees that drivers use to obscure their view of the road ahead?"

Tim Almond said...

There's also a study taking place into the effects of furry dice and Baby on Board stickers to smog and malaria.

DBC Reed said...

This piece seems to suggest that burning coal and oil reduces temperatures the same as the pine forests.Anybody who lived in UK pre Clean Air Act would agree.

Derek said...

Burning coal and oil does cool things off short-term, DBC. Trouble is that the new aerosols created by the burning wash out of the atmosphere pretty quickly. The CO2 hangs around for a lot longer.

DBC Reed said...

@W
Which would indicate that we should be burning coal and oil pretty continuously. I thought vegetation fed off CO2?

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, read the article:

The authors believe that this is playing a significant role in reducing the impact of rising temperatures. They argue that this effect is likely to strengthen in the future.

"In a warmer world, photosynthesis will become faster with rising CO2, which will lead to more vegetation and more emissions of these vapours," said lead author, Dr Mikael Ehn, now based at the University of Helsinki.

"This should produce more cloud droplets and this should then have a cooling impact, it should be a damping effect."

DBC Reed said...

MW
I was more concerned at the time with the denialist-friendly information about oil and coal burning so I did not take in that it cracked the CO2 argument on the head too.
I used to be relatively agnostic about man-made global warming because of the physical evidence of sunspots and increases in solar radiation but now feel like "crossing the floor".
(I am not about to believe that the banks are misunderstood innocents, that fractional reserve banking should be in private hands and that we were liberated by the Common Market's
ban on our longstanding Resale Price Maintenance.)

Pogo said...

So it's not all the heat hiding "in the deep oceans" like a fortnight ago, or last week's "lots of little volcanos" putting particulates into the air. Now it's the "pine forests". Apart from wondering if forestation only occurred since 1998 it seems more and more likely that straws are being desperately clutched in order to try to exlplain away the inadequacies of the GCM models.

Bayard said...

"but now feel like "crossing the floor"."

In which direction? If you were an agnostic, presumably you were previously standing in the middle of the floor, as it were.

Mark Wadsworth said...

P, hehe, good list.

DBC, yes, in which direction have your crossed which floor?

DBC Reed said...

Bayard is right(!!)My former position was in the middle but now I am further over to the denialist side.To clarify: I believe there is some global warming but can't see that more than a small part is man-made.Thanks for all the attention!