Global Warming; Pollution Protected Earth??

[DawnCt1]

I flipped the channel to CBS evening news just to hear the end of this news story. The upshot was, "global warming is occurring at a faster rate and the pollution of the 60s and 70's protected the earth from the sunlight that is causing it. Anyone hear this??

 

[NewJersey]

I would love to read this article or watch a clip. I googled but found nothing and I also searched the CBS news site. I'll keep my eyes open for it.

 

[Towncrier]

I used to believe that the same phenomenon (greenhouse gases) that hold in the heat should also have the effect of reflecting the heat from the sun in the firstplace. After watching a program a couple of weeks ago, I'm not so sure that my belief was valid, although the first post in this thread aludes to what I was thinking.

 

[JimB.]

global warming is occurring at a faster rate and the pollution of the 60s and 70's protected the earth from the sunlight that is causing it

I did not see this, & frankly it makes no sense. If "Sunlight" was causing global warming, then it seems that there would be a simultaneous increase in the amount of solar energy striking the earth. To the best of my research, this is not happening.

Solar activity IS on an 11-year cycle in the intensity of solar flares and the # of sunspots, so if THIS were the cause, it seems that there would be an 11-year cycle in the global warming/cooling process observed with that. It has not happened.

I'll go out on a limb and say that (IMHO) man is ONE of the principal causes of global warming (not the ONLY one though), and that OUR problem is fossil fuels dumping all sorts of gunk into the air. And that "sunlight" has absolutely nothing to due with global warming, except that more heat is being trapped in the atmosphere by the aforementioned "gunk"

What HAS happened is that there is a record high amount of CO2 gas in the atmosphere. Now. Today. Research indicates that there has never been these levels of CO2 present in the atmosphere in any previous era that can be studied. Along with supposedly an increasing trend in the overall temperature of the Earth.

Now it IS true that particulates in the air CAN shade the earth from incoming solar energy that heats the earth up. This was directly observed in the year after Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Phillipines a few years back. And waaaaaay back in 1814, a volcanic eruption in the south pacific spewed so much junk into the air that 1815 was known as "the year without summer". But to dump particulate junk into the air to block incoming sunlight does not seem the appropriate way to solve the problem.