(It's not a new explanation.)
Here's George W. Bush in 2001
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html ...
Yet, the Academy's report tells us that we do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming. We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.
For example, our useful efforts to reduce sulfur emissions may have actually increased warming, because sulfate particles reflect sunlight, bouncing it back into space. ...
When the "skeptics" report that in the 70's, "
scientists" were warning about "Global Cooling" (
a few were) this was the presumed cause.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/173/3992/138 Science 9 July 1971:
Vol. 173. no. 3992, pp. 138 - 141
DOI: 10.1126/science.173.3992.138
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate
S. I. Rasool 1 and S. H. Schneider 1
1 Institute for Space Studies, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, New York 10025
Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 ° K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1971/Rasool_Schneider.htmlSo, one proposal for "GeoEngineering" is to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols_%28geoengineering%29">pump sulfates into the upper atmosphere.