Getting sunburnt more often?

[ltd]

I was asked by a mate the other day if I've noticed how you get sunburnt faster than normal, well, the amount of UV has steadily been increasing since we have taken so many clean air initiatives such as DPF filters on diesels, restrictions on burning off and other such goodies. For example, Australia has the cleanest skies in the world, yet the rate of melanoma has increased 10 fold in the last twenty years. Coincidence? I think not.

Less pollution 'means more hurricanes'

John Ross
The Australian
June 24, 2013 3:00AM

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EFFORTS to reduce air pollution could lead to more hurricanes, British climate scientists have warned.

A study by the UK’s national weather service has found that “anthropogenic aerosols” – tiny airborne particles emitted by transport, industry and households – helped keep a lid on the number of tropical storms in the North Atlantic for most of the twentieth century.

However, the frequency of storms increased after moves to fight pollution led to “sharp declines” in aerosol levels from 1990.

The researchers say their findings corroborate 2012 research which linked aerosols with hurricanes. “Continued mitigation of aerosols may lead to further increases in tropical storm frequency,” they report today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

“External factors, particularly anthropogenic aerosols, could be the dominant cause of historical tropical storm variability.”

Airborne particles can reduce the strength of storms by seeding clouds and encouraging rain. But the study found that aerosols had also helped prevent hurricanes by reducing North Atlantic surface temperatures.

The modelling found that aerosols were responsible for a 0.2C decline in average sea surface temperatures between about 1880 and 1980.

Johannes Quaas, a theoretical meteorologist at the University of Leipzig in Germany, said scientists had been “uncertain” about the effect of airborne particles on tropical storms. The latest study provided “convincing evidence for a significant influence”, Professor Quaas wrote in a separate article in Nature Geoscience.

What this basically eludes to as well is the fact that less pollution in the air has removed the natural sunblock we have enjoyed since the industrial revolution.

So, if you really are a patriot and want to fight cancer then you should go out and buy a V8, or buy a big diesel and let the coal roll. Have a firecracker night or a bonfire and lets stop UV from frying poor unsuspecting Aussies.