Much is debated left and right over whether Katrina and Rita were caused by Global warming. New research indicates it may be infact more directly attributed to the decrease in "Global Dimming" and frankly scares the living shit out of me.
http://www.livescience.com/...
From about 1950 to 1980, the cooling effects of aerosol particles in the atmosphere served to mask the warming effects of greenhouse gas emissions, the new thinking goes. Hurricane activity in the Atlantic was thus lower than it might otherwise have been during this period.
But since the 1980s, North America and Europe have reduced the amount of aerosols they pump into the atmosphere.
"Aerosols have had this masking, cooling impact for several decades, and now as we begin to clean up this atmosphere we may get something we didn't bargain for," Mann told LiveScience.
Without aerosols to offset the warming effect of greenhouse gases, waters in the Atlantic will continue to warm and hurricanes will continue to increase in intensity for decades to come, the researchers say.
So, we're basically fucked. Generations polluted the atmosphere, which 'masked' global warming b/c of Global dimming.
Along comes the Acid rain movement, which correctly reduced dramatically airborne particulates. But it was these particulates that balanced the warming from day 1.
Consider that in Nature, oil burns releasing the aerosols and the CO2 unimpeeded. Oil is a natural product, and as such, has this balance built in. Catalytic converters block aerosols and allow CO2 to go through without any worries.
Stop the Aerosols and GW gets worse. Worse still, the sun's rays will better reach the surface of our oceans unimpeeded, increasing water temps, and making a whole bunch more really bad hurricanes.
With all of this in mind, what the hell do we do? Allow some aersols back out into the pollution, curb CO2 release, and try somehow to balance it out? If we fail on this double edged sword, we're killed either way.
these kinds of diaries really aren't any fun. FYI