China's significant reduction in air pollution may have had unexpected benefits in the Arctic: A new study shows that it diminished storms fueled by aerosols and, in turn, reduced sea ice loss. However, at the same time, this huge drop in aerosols may have accelerated global warming, experts say.
"The Chinese people suffered under bad air quality for decades," Bjørn Samset, a senior researcher at the CICERO Centre for International Climate Research in Norway, told Live Science. "This pollution temporarily slowed global warming and gave the rest of us a bit more time to adapt to a warmer climate. What is happening now is that we're seeing the full effects of greenhouse-gas-driven warming, which we would sooner or later have to face anyway."
