Aerosols: are SO2 emissions reductions contributing to global warming? (copernicus.eu)
Research suggests that the reduction in emissions of pollutants in Europe, thanks to regulations, i--s leading to reduced amounts of aerosols in the atmosphere. (copernicus.eu)
Scientists such as the Met Office's Ben Booth have suggested for some time that anthropogenic aerosols, such as those resulting from industrial and shipping emissions, had been a key driver of climate variability in the North Atlantic. (copernicus.eu)
The main anthropogenic source of aerosols is emissions from combustion of fossil fuels, which emit a wide range of atmospheric pollutants including particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and SO2. (copernicus.eu)
Sulphur dioxide emissions are the precursor of sulphate aerosol, which is a key player in Earth's energy balance. (copernicus.eu)
Sulphur1
In each case, the eruption was so strong that significant amounts of sulphur dioxide (which gets converted to sulphate aerosols) were carried up into the stratosphere (12 to 15 km above the ground). (realclimate.org)
Atmosphere4
There, because this is well above the clouds and rain of the troposphere, the sulphates can hang around for a long time (a few years) while sulphates in the lower atmosphere get quickly washed out and don't generally have a long term impact (but there can be exceptions - see below). (realclimate.org)
However, linking SO2 reductions directly to the recent extreme marine heatwaves omits part of the complexity of using models to calculate sulphate aerosol interactions in the atmosphere or estimating the effective application of the IMO 2020 regulation, and, more generally, the complexity of climate and atmospheric chemistry. (copernicus.eu)
Atmospheric aerosols are microscopic particles, solid or liquid, suspended in a gas, (our atmosphere in this instance). (copernicus.eu)
Aerosols, by scattering, reflecting or absorbing sunlight, reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the lower layers of our atmosphere. (copernicus.eu)
Time1
The crucial factor was that the eruption was almost continuous for over 8 months which lead to significantly elevated sulphate concentrations for that whole time over much of the Atlantic and European regions, even though stratospheric concentrations were likely not particularly exceptional. (realclimate.org)