Quote:
Originally Posted by Descant
I remember one day many years ago, reading a UPI article in the newspaper on green house effects. Several pages later, same paper, same day was an AP article on the same subject. Both cited studies on the greenhouse effect. BUT, one claimed that contaminants in the atmosphere blocked the sun's rays and we were seeing a cooling effect. The other claimed that contaminants in the atmosphere trapped the sun's heat and were getting an overall warming effect. I imagine the authors of both studies examined the same historical data to arrive at their conclusions.
(Insert sage comment here...)
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They both did. We had an unusual period of cooling that caused predictions that we were entering an Ice Age. But the orbital forcing math did not support the predictions, so everyone was looking for the causation.
After acid rain was discovered to be having a dramatic effect on lakes in New England, and the culprit was SO2 and NOx entering the atmosphere, a cap and trade system was developed at the federal level to reduce the emissions, and the statistics showed an immediate warming effect.
Further studies revealed that certain compounds can have a cooling effect, while other compounds have a warming effect.