Global Dimming & Brightening (2D): Aerosol Masking of Greenhouse Warming

Since 1950, two invisible forces have been pulling Earth's surface temperature in opposite directions. Rising CO₂ traps more outgoing heat every year, but a haze of industrial aerosols — sulfate droplets from burning coal and oil, soot from incomplete combustion — has been scattering and absorbing incoming sunlight before it ever reaches the ground. This 2D cross-section renders that haze layer edge-on: photons fall from the sun, and each one is transmitted, scattered, or absorbed according to Beer–Lambert extinction and the aerosol's single-scattering albedo. Step through a schematic 1950–2020 history to watch the "global dimming" of the 1970s–80s give way to "brightening" as clean-air laws cut sulfate pollution, unmasking greenhouse warming that had been partly hidden underneath it — and switch to soot-heavy aerosol to see the same physics flip sign into net warming instead of cooling. A linked forcing chart and sunlight-partition bar make both competing effects, and their sum, visible at a glance.