Dandruff - The Latest Global Warming Culprit

Just when you thought April Fool's Day had past, there is this item; "A team of scientists reports in the prestigious journal Science that dandruff levels in the atmosphere are surprisingly high, and the load of biological aerosols from flaking skin, fur, and pollen can make up between 25% and 80% of the aerosols in the atmosphere." Yes, these folks are serious. Robert Balling reports on this over at Tech Central Station and the item is also being reported at msnbc.

"No day goes by without another story regarding global warming, and the latest news has scientists throughout the world scratching their heads about climate change. A team of scientists reports in the prestigious journal Science that dandruff levels in the atmosphere are surprisingly high, and the load of biological aerosols from flaking skin, fur, and pollen can make up between 25% and 80% of the aerosols in the atmosphere. These aerosols are important building blocks for clouds, and clouds remain the greatest mystery in the global warming debate. If our future has more high clouds, any greenhouse warming will be amplified, but if our future has more low clouds, their ability to reflect away solar radiation will dampen any warming caused by elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases. Clouds are widely recognized to be the wild cards in the greenhouse debate, and at present, clouds are notoriously poorly represented in numerical models of climate. The latest news about dandruff has implications for future clouds, and the results from the German team mean more uncertainty in predicting the future climate."

I have read some other articles on the role clouds may or may not play in global warming, but I have often wondered if any of these computer models have used that as part of the algorithm.

"We cannot wash away these uncertainties in any discussion of policy actions, and as we see in the latest news about dandruff, important changes to the atmosphere may be undiscovered at this time. Anyone claiming to know where we are headed climatically, with or without policy actions, is disregarding the complexities in predicting the future climate of the Earth."

Of course, this could be a boom for those companies that manufacture dandruff shampoos. Can you see the ads now? "Use our dandruff shampoo and help save the planet from the global warming disaster". On a serious note, findings such as this one just go to show that no one has any solid clue as to future global weather patterns or if the planet is going to warm up or cool down. - Sailor