Air Pollution Shields Us From Climate Change, But Not In A Good Way

A study published in the Geophysical Research Letters reveals that air pollution artificially shields us from some of the effects of climate change. However, this is not necessarily good news.

Especially in many emerging economies like India and China, air pollution has spiralled to post-apocalyptic levels and it's accelerating into one of the most pressing public health issues. Hence, it needs to go.

 “This kind of air pollution, mainly in the form of sulfate particles, basically acts as miniature mirrors in the air. They reflect back some of the sunlight, cooling the Earth just like you can cool yourself by walking into the shade,” said Bjørn Samset from the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway, who led this research. “If we remove that, to clean up our air and reduce mortality due to respiratory and lung disease, we’ll also be giving global warming a boost, unfortunately.”

This "positive" outcome of air pollution is just one of the many complex challenges that climate change brings.

“Air pollution will be reduced — and is, in fact, already being strongly reduced — for health reasons, and we’ll just have to deal with the consequences of that,” Samset added.