Published : 10 Sep 2026, 08:59 PM
Updated : 16 Sep 2026, 11:49 AM
Scientists are warning that falling sulphur pollution -- a side effect of decades of clean-air policies -- may be accelerating global warming by stripping away a cooling effect that had long masked the true scale of the climate crisis, reports BBC.
Burning fossil fuels releases two very different pollutants. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere.
But sulphur dioxide forms tiny reflective particles called sulphate aerosols, which bounce sunlight back into space, acting as a partial brake on warming.
As clean-air regulations across Europe, North America, and China have sharply cut sulphur emissions, that brake is weakening -- exposing the full force of greenhouse gas warming that had been partially hidden for decades.
Unlike carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere for centuries, sulphate aerosols disappear within days or weeks of emissions falling.
The cooling effect they provided vanishes almost immediately. The past three years were the three warmest ever recorded.
The UK Met Office says 2027 is "very likely" to break 2024's record, states the BBC.
Professor Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, a former lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the rate of warming has clearly accelerated.
His team found that the models which best predicted recent warming also point to a more sensitive climate -- one that responds more strongly to greenhouse gases than central estimates have assumed.
His analysis suggests the same emissions could now produce around 25 percent more warming than previously thought.
Prof Piers Forster of the University of Leeds estimates that declining aerosol pollution may be adding 0.05C to 0.1C of warming per decade, on top of the 0.2C being added by greenhouse gases, according to BBC.
But aerosols are not the whole story.
As oceans warm, low cloud cover diminishes.
Since clouds reflect sunlight and dark ocean water absorbs it, losing cloud cover lets in more heat -- creating a feedback loop that may be driving warming further still.
The Earth's energy imbalance -- the gap between how much heat the planet absorbs and how much it loses back into space -- has roughly tripled over the past two decades, according to Knutti.
Scientists caution that much uncertainty remains, and that a decade or two of observations is a short window on which to base firm conclusions.
But if the evidence holds, the world currently on track for around 2.8C of warming by the end of the century could instead face closer to 3.5C, Forster warns.
The core message, researchers say, remains unchanged: the more greenhouse gases emitted, the hotter the planet gets.
And if the climate is more sensitive than models assumed, cutting emissions quickly becomes even more urgent.
