MOSCOW. (Andrei Kislyakov, for RIA Novosti) - The latest research by European scientists, climatologists and astronomers suggests that the so-called global dimming, or the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface, observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in the 1950s, is a major factor affecting climate change around the world.
The European scientific community offers different interpretations of this phenomenon, a fact that gives no reason for optimism. In other words, the jury is out over the positive and negative aspects of global dimming.
The whole world has been discussing global dimming for a long time. The latest findings by British scientists, mentioned in The Guardian newspaper, suggest that the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface has dwindled by 20% over the past few years.
U.S. experts who have been measuring solar-radiation volumes for over 50 years say the amount of direct irradiance reaching the surface of our planet has shrunk by 10% between the late 1950s and the early 1990s. Some regions of the world, including Asia and Europe, get even less sunlight. Hong Kong and the former Soviet republics receive 37% and 20% less solar energy, respectively.
Many analysts base this problem on humankind's endless efforts to transform the world.
Alexei Dmitriyev, a Russian professor and eco-geologist, blames the phenomenon on cosmic processes. However, Professor Dmitriyev, who has used logical-mathematical analysis to study Earth-space interaction, claims that space processes are changing the terrestrial atmosphere and that of other planets in the Solar System.
NASA experts who had published the relevant data in June 1999 agree that the Solar System has now entered a hydrogen bubble. Greater hydrogen content in interplanetary space and all over the Solar System expedites substance, energy and information exchanges between the Sun and the planets.
The Earth's atmosphere constantly receives additional energy and substances. This causes all present-day global changes, including global dimming.
British scientists say global dimming is fraught with serious consequences for human civilization. This process could wipe out all plant life on the Earth. Power generating facilities would also burn up much more fuel than they do today. Increased carbon dioxide emissions would increase the greenhouse effect and cause additional global warming.
Swiss scientists believe that global dimming is now coming to an end, and that this will cause disastrous consequences for the global climate. They are convinced that only this dimming phenomenon hinders the greenhouse effect and global warming.
Several previous independent studies have revealed that the Earth's surface now receives much less sunlight than before, and that this process had begun throughout the 1960s, to say the least. This process was offset by global warming, making it possible to underestimate the greenhouse effect's scale. And now global dimming is coming to an end.
The results of several new studies conducted by experts from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, show that in the 1980s global dimming began slowing down and has stopped completely since the 1990s.
Worst of all, a "brightening" trend has started. This corresponds to cloud structure changes and the extent of atmospheric pollution, the two main factors influencing the amount of solar light that can reach the terrestrial surface. Scientists say this process will soon cause undesirable consequences.
In addition, scientists believe that by the 1980s global dimming had partially offset the greenhouse effect, which was responsible for the dimming; however, this dimming no longer influences the greenhouse effect, experts say. This is also proved by the fact that the greenhouse effect has increased since the 1990s. Unbridled contributions to global warming may raise global temperatures by ten degrees centigrade by 2010, spelling extremely undesirable consequences for the animal and plant kingdoms.
The different interpretation of problems of global magnitude proves that we are just beginning to comprehend the processes on the Earth, which is just a tiny part of the Universe.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
