Could the Economy Impact The Weather?

[SLD]

It’s been an awfully cold May. And this got me thinking. Is it possible that in periods of low economic activity, the weather is colder? Less greenhouse gasses going up as people aren’t driving and factories aren’t humming?

Just an odd thought. Couldn’t find anything when I googled it. Maybe it’s never been studied.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I've been making this joke for the past month: we are entering a period of global cooling due to much less global warming.

 

[Bronzeage]

It really depends upon how broad a definition of "weather" is used. There are obvious mechanisms which might affect the daily weather observations. A large city will always have a haze of exhaust from automobiles, furnaces, and other combustion processes. This will block some amount of sunlight. Increased sunlight on concrete and asphalt surfaces will increase the ambient temperature. Whether this is enough to change larger weather patterns or not, is difficult to say, but it's plausible.

 

[scombrid]

It’s been an awfully cold May. And this got me thinking. Is it possible that in periods of low economic activity, the weather is colder? Less greenhouse gasses going up as people aren’t driving and factories aren’t humming?

Just an odd thought. Couldn’t find anything when I googled it. Maybe it’s never been studied.

The reduction in economic activity has not appreciably changed the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in this short period of time. It is cold were we are but that is only because a giant warm high pressure bubbled north and shoved continental polar airmass way south. Be glad this didn't happen in January. Of course there is also a giant blocking high pressure over the Atlantic keeping weather systems from moving from west to east which is contributing to the large latitudinal deviations of weather systems.