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by gotocake 2685 days ago
More critically, they emit huge amounts of sulphuric compounds, which are what really sick around and tend to cooling. Unfortunately when those same compounds don’t reach high altitudes, you get a lot of acid rain. All told however, their net effect is strongly cooling over the first few years, and then milde cooling over longer time frames.
2 comments
tomp 2684 days ago
Why cooling though? It makes sense that it cools the ground, but the sunlight is still captured by the particles (as opposed to reflected by snow/water, on average), so the total Earth+atmosphere should be warmer?
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airstrike 2685 days ago
Fantastic, thanks for the explanation. Can you please point me to a source? Need to send it to my dad who taught me everything I know but has now turned into a climate change denialist who says it's all a globalist / marxist / leftist plot to make money off solar panels.
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gotocake 2685 days ago
Absolutely, and I wish you the best of luck in representing your views to your father. I know how painful such a disconnect can be.

This is a good intro to the broad issue of volcanoes and climate: http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vclimate.html

A more in-depth treatment of sulfur aerosols in the upper atmosphere: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfur_aerosol...

Here’s a breakdown of all the gasses typically releases during eruptions and their various effects: http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/gas.htm

If there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.

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airstrike 2685 days ago
Thank you so much! I will send them all three. Just because you offered and you seem so knowledgeable, he has also claimed the CFC damage to the ozone layer was a hoax created to promote alternative refrigerants... If you have anything on that I could use a link as well!
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gotocake 2685 days ago
My pleasure, and I have a great link that goes into the exact mechanism of how CFC photochemistry destroys the ozone layer.

https://scied.ucar.edu/ozone-layer

Here’s one with more technical analysis along with the exact chemistry:

http://www.theozonehole.com/ozonedestruction.htm

Here’s a broad overview with historical perspectives from the American Chemical Society: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry...

I hope this helps.

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