"Warming hole" delayed climate change over eastern United States

[Dead_Parrot]

So is this why DC hasn't noticed?

50-year model suggests regional pollution obscured a global trend
Cambridge, Mass. - April 26, 2012 - Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.

While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm the Earth's surface, tiny particles in the air can have the reverse effect on regional scales.

"What we've shown is that particulate pollution over the eastern United States has delayed the warming that we would expect to see from increasing greenhouse gases," says lead author Eric Leibensperger (Ph.D. '11), who completed the work as a graduate student in applied physics at SEAS.

"For the sake of protecting human health and reducing acid rain, we've now cut the emissions that lead to particulate pollution," he adds, "but these cuts have caused the greenhouse warming in this region to ramp up to match the global trend."

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More: http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/warming-hole-delayed-climate-change-over-eastern-united-states
Paper: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/3349/2012/acp-12-3349-2012.html

[HereSince1628]

1. I remember mid 1970's computer models concerning industrial particulates causing cooling...

IIRC one of the earliest NOVA's I watched was a story called "Fire or Ice?" Which talked about what were at the time competing models one group that said global warming was coming, and another that said increased albedo was going to result in cooling, maybe similar to the little ice age.