[Stoves] FYI Stoves to the rescue Soot news from Iowa

[Ed Woolsey]

University of Iowa News Release
 
 
March 24, 2008

Soot found to play larger role in global warming than previously thought

Soot from diesel engine exhaust and cooking fires -- widely used in Asia --
may play a larger role than previously thought in global warming, according
to a University of Iowa researcher and his colleague.

Greg Carmichael, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering in the UI
College of Engineering, and V. Ramanathan, atmospheric scientist at Scripps
Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego,
presented their findings in the Sunday, March 23, online edition of the
journal Nature Geoscience.

Titled "Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon," the paper
says that black carbon soot has an atmospheric warming effect three to four
times greater than previously estimated. 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 article 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.

However, the researchers also noted that the findings might have a silver
lining.

"Given black carbon's significance in global warming, a major focus on
decreasing black carbon emissions offers an opportunity to mitigate the
effects of global warming trends in the short term," Carmichael said.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and NASA, Carmichael and Ramanathan integrated
observed data from satellites, aircraft and surface instruments about the
warming effect of black carbon. They found that its warming effect in the
atmosphere, is about 0.9 watts per meter squared (W/m-2), compared to
estimates of between 0.2 W/m-2 and 0.4 W/m-2 that were agreed upon as a
consensus estimate in a report released last year by the U.N.-sponsored
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Those estimates were based on computer model simulations that do not take
into account the degree of black carbon's increased warming effect when it
is mixed with other aerosols. Ramanathan and Carmichael said that the models
also do not adequately represent the full range of altitudes at which the
warming effect occurs. The most recent observations, in contrast, have found
significant black carbon warming effects at altitudes in the range of two
kilometers (6,500 feet), levels at which black carbon particles absorb not
only sunlight but also solar energy reflected by clouds at lower altitudes.

The researchers noted that black carbon is both a pollutant and a global
warming agent, a fact that could provide political opportunities.

"Black carbon's unique role as a leading air pollutant and a major global
warming agent offers a chance to address two of our major environmental
problems simultaneously by implementing policies for reducing black carbon,"
Carmichael said. "We have the capacity to do this, and we hope that our
paper provides more traction to proceed."

Additional information on the study can be found by accessing the Scripps
news release at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Web site
http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite
371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo at uiowa.edu 


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