Scientists warn that climate change is darkening the Earth

Rising ocean waters cause Earth’s brightness to decreaseWhere it revealed measurements of the planet’s light that illuminates the surface of the moon and from satellites.

The Earth now reflects about half a watt of light per square meter than it did 20 years ago, with most of the decline occurring in the last three years of ground-light data, according to the new. study Published in the magazine Geophysical Research Letters.

This is equivalent to 0.5% decrease in reflection from the ground, which reflects approx 30% of the sunlight that illuminates it.

“The fall of albedo came as a surprise to us when we analyzed the data for the last three years after 17 years of nearly flat albedo.“, She said Philip Good, a researcher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and lead author of the new study, pointing to Earth-light data from 1998 to 2017 collected by the Big Bear Solar Observatory in Southern California. When the most recent data was added to previous years, the opacity trend became apparent.

Two things affect the clear sunlight that reaches Earth: the brightness of the sun and the reflectivity of the planet.. The changes in Earth’s albedo that the researchers observed were not correlated with periodic changes in the brightness of the Sun, which means that changes in Earth’s reflection are caused by something on Earth.

especially, There has been a decrease in low, bright and reflective clouds over the eastern Pacific Ocean in recent yearsAccording to satellite measurements made as part of the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project.

This is the same area. Off the western coasts of North and South America, where increases in sea surface temperatures have been recorded due to the reversal of a climate condition called the Pacific decadal oscillation, with possible links to global climate change..

Earth dimming can also be seen in terms of how much solar energy is captured by the Earth’s climate system.. Once this significant additional solar energy is in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, it can contribute to global warming, since the additional sunlight is about the same size as the total anthropogenic climate that has been imposed over the past two decades.

“In fact, It is very worrying“, He expressed Eduard Schwettermann, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Riverside, was not involved in the new study. For some time, he said, many scientists had hoped that a warmer Earth could generate more clouds and higher albedo, which would later help mitigate global warming and balance the climate system. “But this shows that the opposite is true.”

While the entire world is concerned about overcoming the health crisis that the coronavirus pandemic has brought about around the planet, the medical and scientific community is searching with no less concern about what is happening with climate change on a global scale..

“Health is already being affected by rising global temperatures and the destruction of the natural world, a situation that health professionals have been drawing attention to for decades.”Confirmed specialists in The document published At the beginning of the month in 233 international scientific journalsIncluding The BMJ, The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, East African Medical Journal, Chinese Science Bulletin, National Medical Journal of India And australian medical journal, among other things.

“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and continued loss of biodiversity put at risk of catastrophic damage to health that would be impossible to reverse – they warned -. Despite the world’s necessary concern about COVID-19, we can’t wait for the pandemic to pass to reduce emissions quickly“.

Editorial Published before the UN General Assembly next week, one of the last international meetings held before the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November and coordinated by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, an alliance of the UK’s leading health authorities.

In the article, the experts called on governments to do everything in their power to survive without a global increase in the planet’s temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius and to protect the environment in order to avert a catastrophe for global health.

Read on: