A new study finds that cleaner air from the planet’s pandemic flares warmed slightly in 2020, especially in places like the eastern United States, Russia and China
The Earth erupted a slight fever in 2020, partly due to cleaner air from locking in the pandemic, a new study has found.
For a short time, temperatures in some parts of the eastern United States, Russia and China were as much as one-half to two-thirds of a degree (.3 to .37 degrees Celsius) warmer. That’s due to fewer soot and sulfate particles from car fuel and burning coal, which typically cools the atmosphere for a while by exposure to the sun’s heat, a study said Tuesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Overall, the planet was around .05 degrees (.03 degrees Celsius) warmer for the year as the air had less cooling aerosols, which is unlike the carbon dioxide pollution that sees you, find the study.
“Cleaning the air can warm the planet as it cools the pollutants (soot and sulfate)” that climate scientists have long known, says study lead author Andrew Gettelman, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His numbers come from comparing 2020 weather with computer models that were similar to 2020 without the pollution reductions from pandemic locks.
This temporary warming effect from fewer grains was stronger in 2020 than the effects of carbon dioxide emissions with less heat, Gettelman said. That’s because carbon stays in the atmosphere for more than a century with long-term effects, while aerosols stay in the air for about a week.
Even without the decline in cooling aerosols, global temperatures in 2020 were already rushing by breaking the annual heat record due to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas – and the impact of aerosol may have been enough to make this the hottest year in NASA measurement system, said NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who was not part of this study but said it confirms further research.
“Clean air warms the planet a tiny bit, but it kills far fewer people with air pollution,” Gettelman said.
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