A drop in pollution levels in Europe over the last 30 years, resulting in cleaner and clearer skies, is apparently contributing to rising temperatures in the region, as more of the Sun’s radiation is now reaching the Earth’s surface.
Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1°C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland and colleagues took aerosol concentrations from six locations in northern Europe, measured between 1986 and 2005, and compared them with solar-radiation measurements over the same period. Aerosol concentrations dropped by up to 60 per cent over the 29-year period, while solar radiation rose by around 1 watt per square metre.
Talk about being damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
