Researcher: Pollution Limits Sun in China

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2006/jan/27/012703558.html

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - China's skies have darkened over the past 50 years, possibly due to haze resulting from a nine-fold increase in fossil fuel emissions, according to researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The researchers, writing in this month's edition of Geophysical Research Letters, found that the amount of solar radiation measured at more than 500 stations in China fell from 1954 to 2001 despite a decrease in cloud cover.

"Normally, more frequent cloud-free days should be sunnier and brighter but this doesn't happen in our study," said Yun Qian of the energy department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.

"The pollution (that) resulted from human activity may have created a haze which absorbs and deflects the sun's rays," Qian, the study's lead author, said in an e-mail interview Friday.

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[htuttle]

1. I bet that screws with their Feng Shui something fierce!

[cornermouse]

2. One little problem

Air pollution doesn't have many limits. Whenever those volcanoes blow far away, they always seem to eventually darken our sky as well.

[Old and In the Way]

3. The South China haze

It's bad now...why they are rushing to build more cars to clog and jam their highways is beyond me.

[htuttle]

4. I don't know -- ask someone from Los Angeles

They might have some idea.