Poluição Ambiental e Mudanças Climáticas

Abstrato

Atmospheric SO₂: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperatures

Burl Henry

An examination of the effects of SO₂ aerosols in earth’s atmosphere shows that they are responsible for all of the changes that have occurred in earth’s temperatures since the Roman Warming period, and, by extension, the cause of all of the ice ages throughout earth’s history.

They are primarily of volcanic origin, but since circa 1950, anthropogenic SO₂ aerosol emissions began rising, peaking at ~136 Megatons in 1979, and, because of their cooling effect, fears of a return to little ice age conditions.

However, because of acid rain and health concerns, global clean air efforts to reduce SO₂ aerosol emissions were instituted in the early 1970’s, and temperatures began to rise because of the cleaner, less polluted air.

This warming has been attributed to the accumulation of CO₂ in earth’s atmosphere, but the analysis presented in this paper shows that the expected warming from the reduction in SO₂ aerosol emissions precisely matches the actual rise in global temperatures, leaving NO room for any of the hypothesized warming from “greenhouse” gasses. The warming is simply an unfortunate side effect of clean air efforts.