global dimming
n.— «Over the last four decades, scientists have observed a 1.3% per decade decline in the amount of sun reaching the Earth’s surface. This phenomenon, coined “solar dimming” or “global dimming,” is due to changes in clouds and air pollution that are impeding the suns ability to penetrate.» —“Could Global Warming Mean Less Sunshine and Less Rainfall?” Eart Institute, Columbia Univ. (New York City) May 14, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...