Cutting pollution to prevent climate change has accelerated climate change: report

Warm temperatures are accelerating due to humans cutting down on the amount of pollution in the air, according to a new report. The steps that many would usually call for to curb climate change seem to be making it go faster.

According to the New York Times, this past January was the warmest on record, and former NASA scientist James Hansen, who is known for his work raising awareness on climate change back in the late 1980s, has argued that cutting pollution out of the atmosphere has made the earth warmer.

This is due to little particles that are spewed out into the air when fossil fuels are burned. These small sulfate particles were helping to block the amount of rays from the sun getting to earth. But since they have lessened, Hansen argued that the world has gotten warmer as a result.

The Times reported, "These particles spur the formation of more and brighter clouds, which help shield Earth from the sun. But as regulators have curbed sulfate pollution to protect people’s lungs, this cooling effect has diminished, exposing the planet to more of the full force of greenhouse warming."

Hansen's observations come as scientists have been trying to discover why the last couple of years have appeared to be so much warmer than others. Some researchers looked into the factors impacting the atmosphere, and came to the conclusion that something else aside from greenhouse gasses were contributing to the increase of the world's temperature.

Speaking to the press this week, Hansen said that the UN's goals on climate change appear to be "impossible" to achieve "unless some miracle occurs that we don’t understand."