Human activity is warming our planet, this is scientifically proven. What is also scientifically proven is that other things, from volcanoes to glaciers, can also influence our climate.
Volcanoes
Let’s start with the things that make our climate cooler. And the first is something extremely hot: volcanoes. The big ones, especially those in the tropics, can change our climate. The dust they send into the atmosphere reflects sunlight, lowering global temperatures.
In 1991, a volcano in the Philippines erupted and cooled the climate by 0.1 to 0.2 degrees.
The thing to keep in mind about volcanoes is that the effect they have is small and short-lived.
Fine particle contamination
The next step is fine particle pollution from automobiles and industry. That brownish haze you see over the city is actually blocking solar radiation.
In fact, air pollution from humans makes the climate half a degree (-0.5 ° C) colder than it would be otherwise.
So we are actually masking the effects of all our carbon dioxide and methane emissions.
“From a global warming point of view, the fact that there are industrial aerosol emissions means that what we perceive as climate change is less than it would be if there were no or if there were less particle pollution”explains Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of Atmosphere Monitoring at Copernicus.
Ice
Other things in nature can make our climate warmer or colder, like ice.
If there is a lot of ice covering the land or sea, it reflects light back into the atmosphere and cools the planet. If the ice melts, it reveals the dark ocean or land below, which absorbs sunlight and warms the planet. This is what is happening in the Arctic and Siberia in recent years.
Humans
It’s all fascinating, but in the end, the main reason our planet is warming every decade is that humans do things like burn oil, gas, and coal, and cut down forests.
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