I predict that aerosols will impact climate change in a couple ways. The aerosol particles that are the same size as the sun's energy waves will reflect the suns energy back into the atmosphere. This will reduce the amount of energy that enters earth's atmosphere and become absorbed by the earth's surface. However that does not mean that all of the sun's energy will be reflected.
Most of the energy will enter the earth's atmosphere and be either reflected by a light surface or absorbed by a dark surface. In urbanized areas of the world, the energy is absorbed and re-emitted as long wave infrared radiation. This causes the urban areas to be much hotter. This radiation, is trapped on earth by aerosols. The more aerosols in the air, the more cloud coverage. According to Aerosols and Climate Change by Mary Hardin and Ralph Kahn, the clouds will trap the radiation on earth causing there to be a hotter climate. A hotter climate means that more moisture is evaporating and being soaked up by the clouds. This causes more rain fall but in various places. To add to the rain fall, the ice caps will melt and the sea levels will rise.
No comments:
Post a Comment