Clean Air Act Caused Climate Change
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - 13:01
in Earth & Climate
A Georgia State University researcher says the Clean Air Act signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970 led to climate change - in a good way. Jeremy Diem, an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences, analyzed summer rainfall data from nine weather stations in the Atlanta metropolitan area from 1948 to 2009, and discovered that precipitation increased in the late 1970s after drops in the 1950s and '60s. Cause: Passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, he says. Pollution had been higher in the earlier decades. Some studies have found a general correlation between air pollution and rainfall, with higher concentrations of particulates in the air suppressing rainfall, they conclude. read more