In addition to causing smoggy skies and chronic coughs, soot – or black carbon – turns out to be the number two contributor to global warming. It’s second only to carbon dioxide, according to a four-year assessment by an international panel.
The new study concludes that black carbon, the soot particles in smoke and smog, contributes about twice as much to global warming as previously estimated, even by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“We were surprised at its potential contribution to climate,” said Sarah Doherty, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist and one of four coordinating lead authors.
The silver lining may be that controlling these emissions can deliver more immediate climate benefits than trying to control carbon dioxide, she said.
The paper was made freely available online today (Jan. 15) in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.
Some previous research had hinted that models were underestimating black-carbon emissions, Doherty said, from such things as open burning of forests, crops and grasslands, and from energy-related emissions in Southeast Asia and East Asia.
Black carbon’s role in climate is complex. Dark particles in the air work to shade the Earth’s surface while warming the atmosphere. Black carbon that settles on the surface of snow and ice darkens the surface to absorb more sunlight and increase melting. Finally, soot particles influence cloud formation in ways that can have either a cooling or warming impact.
The report surveyed past studies and included new research to quantify the sources of black carbon and better understand its overall effect on the climate.
Doherty was executive director of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Projectin 2009 when policy groups were seeking better information on the benefits of reducing black-carbon emissions. The research team undertook a comprehensive assessment, funded by IGAC and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Because of a lack of action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the policy community is asking what else we can do, particularly to help places like the Arctic that are melting much more quickly than we had anticipated,” Doherty said. “We hope reducing black-carbon emissions buys us some time. But it doesn’t replace cutting back on CO2 emissions.”
While carbon dioxide has a half-life of 100 years, black carbon stays in the atmosphere for only a few days.
The authors investigated various sources of black carbon to see which reductions might have the most short-term cooling impact. Regulating emissions from diesel engines followed by replacing some wood- and coal-burning household stoves, authors find, would have the greatest immediate cooling impact.
“If you’re just thinking about impact on climate, you would want to be strategic about which sources you cut back on,” Doherty said. “We looked at the overall impact because some of these sources also emit associated particles that can have counteracting effects.”
Black carbon contributes to climate change in the mid to high latitudes, including the northern United States, Canada, northern Europe and northern Asia, as well as affecting rainfall patterns of the Asian Monsoon.
The report incorporates data that Doherty and co-author Stephen Warren, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences, gathered between 2007 and 2009 to measure soot on Arctic snow. Calculating black carbon deposits in the Arctic is difficult, so data are essential for testing and correcting models.
First author Tami Bond, now at the University of Illinois, earned a doctoral degree at the UW in 2000 that combined engineering, chemistry and atmospheric science to measure emissions from burning that have atmospheric importance.
“Mitigating black carbon is good for curbing short-term climate change, but to really solve the long-term climate problem, carbon dioxide emissions must also be reduced,” Bond said in a press release.
In related research, Doherty, Warren and UW graduate student Cheng Dang will travel next month to Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and elsewhere to collect snow samples and investigate black carbon’s effects on North America’s Great Plains.
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[UPDATE] I trust Anthony won’t mind if I highlight their interesting estimate of the total black carbon forcing from all sources since 1750:
<blockquote>When open burning emissions, which emit high levels of organic matter, are included in the total, the best estimate of net industrial-era climate forcing by all black-carbon- rich sources becomes slightly negative (-0.06 W m-2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of -1.45 to +1.29 W m-2).</blockquote>
In other words, black carbon forcing from all emissions is zero ± one W/m2 …
w.
Ms. Hickey is apparently ignorant to the existance of water vapor.
This exhibits all the signs of being yet another False Economic Growth scam on par to the now discredited Co2 scam, and when all the money has been wasted someone will prove that its self regulating like Co2. Its all part of a Corporate-Nazi ideology with the aim of increasing the financial apartheid between rich and poor by inflating the cost of basic living to a point where low income people in temperate climates have to chose whether to heat or eat in winter !
Reading between the lines they’re saying they don’t know what’s going on but more research could lead to a better understanding.
In short, send money.
Translation: The UN/World Bank said “the peasants finally figured out we were going to tax and regulate them back into serfdom so how about coming up with something we can use to tax and regulate them that they won’t object to as strongly”
Was it not as recent as recently as 2012 (and at least as far back as 2005) that some were advocating the deliberate placement of aerosols and particulates into the atmosphere in order to block sunlight and “reverse global warming”?
Ya gotta give ’em credit. The keep finding ways to redefine the problem so that they can continue to get funding to find a solution (and keep the politicians and public agitated).
“It’s second only to carbon dioxide, according to a four-year assessment by an international panel.”
Stop right there. Second? What about water vapor? Isn’t that nice how they just ignore the elephant in the living room? Sigh. Wake me when the scientific method makes a come back!
“Mitigating black carbon is good for curbing short-term climate change, but to really solve the long-term climate problem, carbon dioxide emissions must also be reduced,”
===============
Burning fossil fuel doesn’t just release CO2, it also releases H2O, which is a much stronger and more dangerous GHG.
The EPA is apparently seeking to have H2O declared a pollutant (true), which would be right in line with reducing H2O in the environment and its negative effects on temperature and health.
Just think of the flood damage that could be avoided, along with the loss of life, if we could reduce the amount of H2O released into the atmosphere. If we could completely eliminate H2O emissions from the atmosphere it would eliminate many of the problems around the world in a very short period of time.
So what effect does this have on the empirical measurement of the climate sensitivity to CO2? It must bring it down somewhat. How will the models be adjusted to take account of this. Maybe they will retrofit them to the temperature record again upto about 1996 then they will miraculously find they will predict no warming for 16 years or even longer. But don’t be fooled the world will still be predicted to become an inferno.
Read we need more money.
How can they do this when the earth is cooling. How come no body up there uses there freaking minds? Some how it goes past every form of science white out Any reality check.
Here a video from NASA claiming to have put to getter the temperature rise over history. They Cale it 14 degrees Celsius while MET office came whit 12 degrees and we know that even thats to hight.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-temps.html
Last week i read some thing about calling skeptics trolls.
But better to be a troll know what hes talking about then to be a scientist who those not have an clue
Oddly enough, even moth change.
What warming?
Carbon is carbon, ain’t it?
/sarc off
replacing some wood- and coal-burning household stoves
A 10 step plan to reduce black carbon and man’s impact on the climate-
Step 1: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” -Barack Obama, http://youtu.be/HlTxGHn4sH4.
Step 2: The U.N, with funds from U.S. taxpayers, uses proceeds from carbon dioxide taxes to confiscate wood and coal burning stoves and replace them with new electric stoves.
Step 3: Realize that in many parts of the world, people who use wood and coal to heat their food/shelter cannot afford electricity rates that have necessarily skyrocketed.
Step 4: Increase tax rate on carbon dioxide.
Step 5: Realize many former users of wood and coal buring stoves do not have electricity.
Step 6: Increase tax rate on carbon dioxide.
Step 7: Realize the recipients of the electric stoves are necessarily starving/freezing.
Step 8: Build wind farms and install power lines to power any electric stove whose owner is still living.
Step 9: Observe that global temperatures are persistently falling.
Step 10: Increase tax rate on carbon dioxide.
Brilliant!
Sorry, it looks like I forgot a “” after the word “skyrocket” in Step 1. Hopefully mod can fix it, or delete the post.
Really? This was the place where I stopped to read their press release further. Most of the papers which where published on the topic estimate the average atmospheric residence time between 8 to 15 years.
See: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_5GH_IPCC_GHG_files/image022.jpg
“It’s second only to carbon dioxide, according to a four-year assessment by an international panel”
Stop right there – why should we believe anything written by people who can advocate, write or even report such nonsense? The sad thing is, that opinion-makers and politicians will not see the two glaring flaws in this statement and will take it at face value, as would eg most of the people on my FB page. We still have a mountain to climb in terms of persuading the MSM and law-makers that the AGW scam and all that follows from it, is rubbish.
Meanwhile they will use this to ban open fires and to tax fuel for central heating etc and esp for cars, even further. And the price of food for those in the cities will go through the roof when the cost of transporting it soars. Maybe that will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of ignorance
We know that soot is a problem. We know that wind currents carry soot from China to the Arctic. Alarmists should be pushing to bring manufacturing back to the United States. Stricter pollution controls here and it would completely cut out the pollution from cargo ships. Sure things would cost more. Maybe then we would only buy what we need. We could go back to making quality goods that last. That would save resources, reduce energy needs and cut pollution even further. Makes a lot more sense than taxing plant food.
‘While carbon dioxide has a half-life of 100 years…’
It’s radioactive and fissions? Things really are worse than we thought.
So soot will open the northern trading routes?
Who benefits? Canada, USA, Russia,China and Asia.
The law of unintended consequences, again.
As a Canadian, its burn baby burn,
Smudge pots to prosperity?
Unfortunately I doubt these claims, its awful convenient to have a “causive” agent that does it all.
It cools, it warms, it melts ice, will it change the oil in my truck while its at it?
Gail Combs
January 16, 2013 at 7:06 am
“Because of a lack of action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the policy community is asking what else we can do, particularly to help places like the Arctic that are melting much more quickly than we had anticipated,” Doherty said. “We hope reducing black-carbon emissions buys us some time. But it doesn’t replace cutting back on CO2 emissions.”
Translation: The UN/World Bank said “the peasants finally figured out we were going to tax and regulate them back into serfdom so how about coming up with something we can use to tax and regulate them that they won’t object to as strongly”
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Nice translation, though I would have expanded the meaning of “policy community” a bit. You read Marxist Jargonese very well!
BTW, since when is a survey of literature, much of which is just surveys of literature, a study? This is very much like the old propaganda technique of using news reports on the “Mood of the People” where the story really is about news reports on the MOP, which are stories about all news reports on the MOP…
From the post:
In addition to causing smoggy skies and chronic coughs, soot – or black carbon – turns out to be the *number two contributor to global warming*. It’s second only to carbon dioxide, according to a four-year assessment by an international panel.
The new study concludes that black carbon, the soot particles in smoke and smog, contributes about *twice as much to global warming* as previously estimated, even by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
============================
What global warming, pray tell?
BC is no doubt pollution, but here we see another ingredient added to account for the mythical global warming. Now we have two sources to account for the warming that does not happen. This sort of absurdity is offered as science, and is swallowed by some.
I repeat myself, but it would seem that any theory that didn’t take into account the
forcing due to soot would in all likelihood attribute observed warming to CO2 alone,
thereby falsely exaggerating its effect. I assume that soot will have its major effect
on land temps. Does this provide an opportunity to judge relative effect by comparing land and nearby water temps? I have no idea.
“While carbon dioxide has a half-life of 100 years, black carbon stays in the atmosphere for only a few days.”
However, it sits on arctic ice for a lot longer than that, and reduces albedo.
To the virtual inhabitants of the computer model in question, this might be an interesting finding. To people in the real world it means nothing.
Replace them with a “rocket stove”!
Here’s a website for an organization that wants to build and distribute rocket stoves for cooking in the third world:
http://www.rocketstove.org/
Here’s a great how-to thread on making one for home heating, with lots of good comments:
http://www.iwilltry.org/b/build-a-rocket-stove-for-home-heating/
Here are a couple of sites that focus on using rocket stoves’ exhaust pipes to heat a large mass of “cob”-based masonry to provide long-term heating:
http://www.permies.com/forums/posts/list/40/2558
http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp