Also, see below the “Continue reading” line for an impressive scientific visualization video of black carbon being transported around the globe.
University of Iowa News Release July 27, 2010
UI researcher finds black carbon implicated in global warming
Increasing the ratio of black carbon to sulphate in the atmosphere increases climate warming, suggests a study conducted by a University of Iowa professor and his colleagues and published in the July 25 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. No paper was provided with the press release.
Black carbons — arising from such sources as diesel engine exhaust and cooking fires — are widely considered a factor in global warming and are an important component of air pollution around the world, according to Greg Carmichael, Karl Kammermeyer Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in the UI College of Engineering and co-director of the UI’s Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research. Sulfates occur in the atmosphere largely as a result of various industrial processes.
Carmichael’s colleagues in the study were V. Ramanathan and Y. Feng of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif.; S-C. Yoon and S-W. Kim of Seoul National University, South Korea; and J. J. Schauer of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
In order to conduct their study, the researchers made ground-level studies of air samples at Cheju Island, South Korea, and then sampled the air at altitudes between 100 and 15,000 feet above the ground using unmanned aircrafts (UAVs).
They found that the amount of solar radiation absorbed increased as the black carbon to sulphate ratio rose. Also, black carbon plumes derived from fossil fuels were 100 percent more efficient at warming than were plumes arising from biomass burning.
“These results had been indicated by theory but not verified by observations before this work,” Carmichael said. “There is currently great interest in developing strategies to reduce black carbon as it offers the opportunity to reduce air pollution and global warming at the same time.”
The authors suggest that climate mitigation policies should aim to reduce the ratio of black carbon to sulphate in emissions, as well as the total amount of black carbon released.
In a paper published in May 2008 in Nature Geoscience, Carmichael and Ramanathan found that black carbon soot from diesel engine exhaust and cooking fires — widely used in Asia — may play a larger role than previously thought in global warming. They said that coal and cow dung-fueled cooking fires in China and India produce about one-third of black carbon; the rest is largely due to diesel exhaust in Europe and other regions relying on diesel transport. The paper also noted that soot and other forms of black carbon could equal up to 60 percent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas.
Carmichael is chair of the scientific advisory group for the World Meteorological Organization’s GURME (Global atmospheric watch Urban Research Meteorology and Environment) project and chair of the scientific advisory group for the Shanghai Expo pilot project on air quality forecasting. He has worked with Shanghai authorities for three years to help develop an early warning system for air quality problems and heat waves.
The study was funded by National Science Foundation.
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Tiny air pollution particles commonly called soot, but also known as black carbon, are in the air and on the move throughout our planet. Black carbon enters the air when fossil fuels and biofuels, such as coal, wood, and diesel are burned. Since black carbon readily absorbs heat from sunlight, the particles can affect Earth’s climate, especially on a regional scale. Though global distribution of soot remains difficult to measure, NASA researchers use satellite data and computer models to better understand how these short-lived particles influence Earth’s climate, cryosphere, and clouds. This scientific data visualization uses data from the GEOS5 GOCART climate model to show black carbon’s atmospheric concentration from August to November in 2009.
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Ahhh! So over half of recent warming may be due to soot. But that means that more than half of recent warming may not be due to CO2. So the CO2-forcing equations need to be calibrated downward.
Of course after taking out the UHI and airport siting effects on global temp measurements, not a whole lot of warming is left over. So how much CO2 warming can now be claimed as settled science?
…the rest is largely due to diesel exhaust in Europe and other regions relying on diesel transport
Hello, has anybody actually looked at the exhaust of a modern diesel lately? Those modern diesels with particle filters (DPF), which have been mandatory for diesels in most of Europe since years, and soon in most of the US as well, do NOT produce soot particles in any appreciable quantities. The exhaust pipe inside color of those engines, is light grey to white, which would not be if they’d blow soot.
With an atmospheric lifetime of those soot particles of ~ 1 week, and most of the Western World pretty close to eliminate soot production, it will be very hard to extort money from the West based on that.
I think this study will quietly disappear for beeing too counterproductive to “the cause”.
Marko says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I’m still waiting for critical thinkers to explain how methane, a “fossil” fuel, came to comprise much of Saturn’s moon Titan.
You’re sharp! Perhaps it was the strong early sun paradox.
Marko says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:34 pm
As John mentions, H20?
I’m still waiting for critical thinkers to explain how methane, a “fossil” fuel, came to comprise much of Saturn’s moon Titan.
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It must be the result of the Dinosaurs and their earlier exploration of the solar system:)
PeteM says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I realise this web site is dedicted to finding any excuse for climate change other than human activity increasing greenhouse gases, but how much does the temperatue of this planet have to rise before we hear information here that recognises where the real problem is ?
You realized wrong. I’m a reader of this blog since approximately three years and I only have found the purpose of this site and other “skeptic” sites, like Climate Realists, the Heartland Institute, I Love my Carbon Dioxide, Jo Nova, etc., is liberating the science of climate from myths and pseudoscience. In other words, to find authentic scientific answers to authentic natural phenomena.
PeteM says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:35 pm
“[…] but how much does the temperatue of this planet have to rise before we […]”
Here’s a question for you, PeteM: What is the temperature of the planet?
PeteM says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I realise this web site is dedicted to finding any excuse for climate change other than human activity increasing greenhouse gases, but how much does the temperatue of this planet have to rise before we hear information here that recognises where the real problem is ?
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Pete, honest to God, if you know where the real problem is, please let us know!
Atmo, that’s the first thing I thought too. I was looking for it too.
Find it and post it, please…..
There is a website that catalogs fires world wide using MODIS date … it’s called FireMapper … http://firefly.geog.umd.edu/firemap/
Note that most of the fires are from third world countries burning agricultural land or making charcoal, according the the site. MODIS also provides details of fires worldwide.
Marko says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:34 pm
As John mentions, H20?
I’m still waiting for critical thinkers to explain how methane, a “fossil” fuel, came to comprise much of Saturn’s moon Titan.
________________________Reply;
below is an excerpt from comments I made over on tallbloke’s talkshop, that might give you an idea about all of the methane ended up on Titan..
Now that the solar system seems stable, is the drive / drag in balance or just in a local calm spot for now, that is on the main sequence stage of it’s growth, and until disrupted by outside magnetic field disturbances or massive contributions of in falling additional mass.
Once planet forming became stable, the elements found in the basic constituents of the planets were separated by radiation pressures of the solar wind, fractionally distilling the lighter, and more easily ionized elements / compounds to the realms of the outer gas giants and further out, leaving the free electrons to end up suspended on the outside of the Oort clouds as a Negative charge on the skin of the heliopause.
I think that will explain the makeup of all of the outer planets, however the compensation of their moons seem to be clumps of condensed matter with radically different makeups, and may have been just captured whole by the outer planets, some as interlopers created and delivered from out side this solar system, or slung out in early stages and reintroduced late in planet forming.
To cut to the quick it was the ongoing cleanup of the small particulate matter in the solar system, along with the actual particles pushed from the sun in the solar wind that resulted in the production of the late and still ongoing stages of planet production, leaving them with their resultant size and composition.
rbateman says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:20 pm
The solution to trap black soot:
A water bath that the exhaust is passed through.
It doesn’t get any simpler than that, if capturing carbon soot is what you are needing to do.
____________________Reply;
over the past 9 years as a cnc machinist I have assisted in the parts production, for building almost a thousand completed units of centrifugal separators for particles, and soot and soluble gas scrubbers, using mist water spay heads in Stainless Steel housings, for new clean coal power plants and retrofit kits for old coal power plants, only three finished items were sent of China and one to India.
Here you go.
A real black iceberg :
Whoops link didn’t work
try this http://farm1.static.flickr.com/122/371503417_f5b92668c9_o.jpg
PeteM says: … but how much does the temperatue of this planet have to rise before we hear information here that recognises where the real problem is ?
<b.JK: The temperature rise does not matter. Neither do cuddly polar bears, or melting ice, or floods, or droughts.
None of this matters if the temperature increase was not man caused.
So far no one has shown that man’s CO2 is increasing temperature. Al Gore lied when he said that CO2 increases preceded temperature increases when actually the ice cores show CO2 increases following temperature increases. That was the best evidence there ever was for man’s CO2 causing temperature increase and it was wrong. The other dramatic evidence, Mann’s hockey stick has been thoroughly debunked by McIntyre, by the NAS’ North report and by statistical experts (Wegman report).
Now all the IPCC has is, in IPCC lead author Phil Jones words: The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing… (from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm)
In other words, they can’t figure out the cause, so it mus be man’s CO2.
BTW, here are some more Phil Jones statements from that bbc interview:
BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
CRU Head, Dr. Jones: Yes, but only just.
BBC: Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
CRU Head, Dr. Jones: So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
Why do you still believe in dangerous global warming? It is not unusual, it has stopped and it has never been shown to be man caused.
Thanks
JK
I found this post to be quite sootable for mass consumption. (Ouch! Sorry.)
If the greenies and their followers are howling “Do something,” then funding China & other countries with loans to install scrubbers on their coal-burning plants (and choo-choos?) would provide lots of bang for the buck and not bankrupt the world. A win-win solution?
My God. The United States isn’t the biggest evil doer on the planet? Somebody pinch me. I knew all along that the Europeans were be blamed! (Just kidding, love all of you guys, and of course your food and cars) I traveled through Eastern Europe in 1984 as a young man and I remember being particularly shocked by the amount of Diesel soot in the cities. It was everywhere! Buildings were black with it, in downtown Budapest it could be seen hanging in the air in the streets. I figured that no one could afford to fix the things so they ran them til they wouldn’t go anymore. Anyway, I have an idea for a “green” cruise (White, really) during the summer months up north. Give all the passengers a scrub brush on a long pole. We’ll clean up them icebergs and save the planet!
/sarc on/
This post is mistaken, it must be the trace gas co2. We are all doomed I tells ya!
/sarc off/
“Soot climate forcing via snow and ice albedos
The “efficacy” of this forcing is ∼2, i.e., for a given forcing it is twice as effective as CO2 in altering global surface air temperature.” James Hansen – NASA :o)
“A NASA-led study has found new evidence that a “heat pump” effect, driven by emissions of soot, or black carbon, contributes as much (or more) to atmospheric warming in the Himalayas as greenhouse gases.” NASA more…
“…aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades.” NASA model :o(
It all looks like rotten ice to me!
For our beloved Warmist friends who still don’t get it here it is in black and white. Meanwhile the Arctic continues in its death spiral while temperatures are close to boiling point.
This is too easy!
The collective we has been working to curtail particulates from all forms of combustion for decades. Not that more is not possible or desirable. It is not us they are taking about but those dirty Asians and other poor people around, you know that great unwashed mass of humanity that just wants to get enough to eat every day. This is one the ideologues can’t pin on most of Europe and N. A.
Hey, latitude.
This one about modeled sources and transport of soot:
This one about the effect of the soot on albedo and total heat budget:
And an update:
And Jimbo beats me to them by minutes…
Grant Hillemeyer says:
July 29, 2010 at 6:23 pm
“[…] a young man and I remember being particularly shocked by the amount of Diesel soot in the cities. It was everywhere! Buildings were black with it,[…]”
Don’t confuse it with the exhaust from 2-stroke motors. They ran on a gasoline-oil mixture. The GDR’s Trabant. Diesel they had only for trucks.
I recall that the main argument used for co2 being the main driver of the late 20th century warming was because they could not think of anything else. I say think again and try a little Occam’s Razor instead of convoluted co2 forcing and positive feedback mechanisms.
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Reply: What was the population in the 1700s and 1800s? How many cars were around then? Did we have electricity generating power plants? Blah, blah, blah…….
DirkH says:
July 29, 2010 at 2:09 pm
….AND omitting to tell us that black carbon has a lifetime of about a week.
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Black carbon is being constantly released I think so its lifetime is irrelevant.