‘Termination shock’: cut in ship pollution sparked global heating spurtParticulate from burning fuel actually affects the planet because the tiny particles block sunlight, and can trap heat. Because 'cleaner' fuels were mandated for shipping traffic, and reduced shipping because pandemic, the reduction in pollutants caused warming the following year, making 2023 the hottest year recorded.
This is why many are against climate engineering on a planetary scale.
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Deliberately pumping aerosols into the air over the oceans to stimulate more cloud cover has been proposed as a way of cooling the Earth. Yuan said years of shipping pollution followed by a sharp cut was an accidental large-scale experiment: “We did inadvertent geoengineering for 50 or 100 years over the ocean.”
The new analysis indicates that this type of geoengineering would reduce temperatures, but would also bring serious risks. These include the sharp temperature rise when the pumping of aerosols stopped – the termination shock – and also potential changes to global precipitation patterns, which could disrupt the monsoon rains that billions of people depend on.
'cleaner' is relative. The bunker fuel used in shipping is like the difference between raw sewage and a pig pen. Sure, the pig pen may be cleaner, but is it clean?