It is possible we already have some presentiment of our future

[avram]

Gene Wolfe’s The Sword of the Lictor (Volume 3 of the Book of the New Sun), Chapter XXV:

“It was a period of great confusion as well. My astronomers had told me that this sun’s activity would decay slowly. Far too slowly, in fact, for the change to be noticeable in a human lifetime. They were wrong. The heat of the world declined by nearly two parts in a thousand over a few years, then stabilized. Crops failed, and there were famines and riots. I should have left then.”

David Adam, writing for The Guardian:

It turns out that Ohmura was the first to document a dramatic effect that scientists are now calling "global dimming". Records show that over the past 50 years the average amount of sunlight reaching the ground has gone down by almost 3% a decade. It's too small an effect to see with the naked eye, but it has implications for everything from climate change to solar power and even the future sustainability of plant photosynthesis.

It’s a very odd article. I scrolled back up to the top of the page to make sure it hadn’t been published on April 1st.

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

After reading the article it makes sense to me. Basically, the Earth's albedo is rising, reflecting more sunlight into space. This is partially due to increased cloud cover. This jibes with what I've heard on other fronts: Frex, I've heard claims that global warming could, paradoxically, lead to another Ice Age by dramatically increasing cloud cover, this driving up albedo, thus leading to a new Ice Age. (I'm not saying I endorse this view; just saying I've heard it.)

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

In the version of the article I saw--don't remember the source, alas--it made it clear that the output of the sun has definitely not decreased during that period. As kent_allard notes, it's likely that the Earth's albedo has increased; also, apparently, more visible sunlight is being absorbed by the upper atmosphere than previously. So the atmosphere heats up and it gets darker--global warming and global darkening at the same time.