- The true threat from global warming may have been masked
by air pollution, a leading scientist warned today.
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- Aerosols - particles of pollution in the air - help to
cool the earth but, as they diminish in coming decades, global warming
may be found to accelerate, says Meinrat Andreae, of the Max Planck Institute
in Mainz, Germany.
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- Professor Andreae will tell a conference in London today
that warming will be especially fast if aerosol "cooling" has
hidden a higher climate sensitivity than is generally assumed.
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- "These arguments suggest that there is a considerable
chance that climate change in the 21st century will follow the upper extremes
of current... estimates, and may even exceed them.
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- "This would have truly grave consequences for the
Earth environment and human society, and argues for immediate and radical
reductions of greenhouse gas emissions."
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- Professor Andreae says the aerosols, which scatter light
back to space, tend on balance to cool the earth.
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- But because of efforts to stop the particles being emitted,
and their short lifetime, this "climate protection" will diminish
in the future.
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- He said: "The only winning strategy is to do as
much as possible, as fast as possible, to cut emissions of greenhouse gases."
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- The 13th World Clean Air and Environmental Protection
Congress is taking place at the Hilton Metropole Hotel.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=554223
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