在温室气体的推动下，全球气温正急剧上升。7月14日，全球热带和中纬度海洋的表层温度创下历史同期最高纪录，欧洲自5月以来已遭遇三次热浪，导致数万人死亡。气温上升还增强了诸如台风“巴威”等极端天气的威力，并导致中国沿海转移了超过100万人。科学家们发现，除了常规的温室效应外，地球的反照率正在快速下降，使海洋吸收了更多阳光并累积了大量热量。

反照率下降的一个核心原因在于空气污染控制的副作用。诺贝尔奖得主保罗·克鲁岑早在20年前就指出，减少带来严重健康隐患的二氧化硫排放是一个政策悖论：虽然控制气溶胶每年可挽救500000人的生命，但也削弱了其反射阳光的冷却效应，进而使全球气温上升约1摄氏度（1.8华氏度）。随着全球各地持续治理雾霾，二氧化硫排放量不断下降，加之温室效应导致海洋上空降温云层减少，这两种趋势在双重叠加下进一步加剧了全球变暖。

尽管“净零”目标正在艰难推进，但这种方式见效慢且依赖大国合作，无法快速扭转气候变暖的趋势。因此，各国需要采取更具建设性的应对措施，如提高空调效率，或落实10年前《基加利协定》中关于淘汰制冷系统氟化气体的承诺，后者可带来双倍的降温效益。此外，更激进的方案是通过地球工程主动增加地球反射率，例如以色列与美国合资的Stardust Solutions公司正在筹集资金研发平流层“安全气溶胶”技术，以期人工给地球降温。

Driven by greenhouse gases, global temperatures are rising rapidly, with Earth’s tropical and mid-latitude sea surface temperatures on July 14th breaking modern records, and Europe suffering three heatwaves since May that have killed tens of thousands of people. This warming has also amplified extreme weather, such as Typhoon Bavi, which forced the evacuation of over one million people from the Chinese coast. Scientists are particularly alarmed by a rapid decline in Earth's albedo over the past two decades of satellite measurements, which has caused the oceans to absorb much more solar energy.

A major contributor to this falling albedo is the unintended side effect of air pollution control. As atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen pointed out twenty years ago, reducing sulphur dioxide emissions presents a policy dilemma: while cleaning up toxic aerosols saves 500,000 lives annually, it diminishes their cooling effect, potentially raising global temperatures by approximately 1°C (1.8°F). As developing cities clean up smog, sulphur emissions continue to decrease, and combined with a greenhouse-gas-driven scarcity of cooling clouds over the oceans, these dual feedback loops are driving temperatures even higher.

While net-zero goals are necessary, they are slow and heavily reliant on cooperation from the largest economies, doing little to immediately alter the climate trajectory. Consequently, countries must adapt by enhancing energy efficiency, such as improving cooling systems to double the benefits of phasing out fluorinated gases, as agreed in Kigali ten years ago. More radical proposals involve geoengineering to boost Earth's reflectivity, with startup Stardust Solutions raising funds for stratospheric aerosol technologies, highlighting that if nations can collectively warm the planet through maritime shipping sulphur limits, they should coordinate on how to safely cool it.

Source: It’s too darn hot. Blame global dimming

Subtitle: Earth is absorbing a lot more sunshine

Dateline: Jul 16, 2026 06:54 AM