[Stoves] New article on effects of traditional cooking methods

[Tami Bond]

Hi Kevin,

There are lots of hypotheses about the interactions between particles, 
water and clouds, and climate.

Your first idea...
> Do you know if such soot particles can nucleate rain drops? If so, what 
> would you think about the following
> 1: New soot is introduced into an otherwise stable atmosphere.
> 2: Extra soot permits formation of extra raindrops
> 3: Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas.
> 4: The soot additions result in less greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and 
> the earth cools.
>   
...doesn't work because the amount of condensed water is limited by the 
equilibrium between vapor and liquid, not the number of particles. If 
water wants to condense, it will. The only proven interaction (to date) 
goes like this:
1. Extra particles provide more places for water to condense
2. More cloud droplets are formed, but with (approximately) the same 
amount of water, so droplets are smaller
3. Water dispersed into small droplets reflects more light than large 
droplets
4. ...indeed, cooling.
But this is all particles, not just soot, and it's nonlinearly related 
to the number of particles. It's hard to know just how much cooling 
soot, by itself, provides.

If you have some bandwidth, you might want to look at Beate Liepert's site:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~liepert/media/flash/globalDimming.swf
> Would you know if there are soot particles in jet engine exhaust? Can they 
> cause formation of contrails when a jet plane flies through saturated air? 
Yes there are and yes they can, and I don't know how large this effect 
is (and I doubt others do yet, either).

These aerosol/water/cloud interactions are among the most uncertain 
parts of climate modeling, and a lot of science is happening in this 
area. Surf the web a bit before you postulate more mechanisms, because 
likely somebody has already thought about it and is trying to figure it out.

Back to stoves!

Tami