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Asian pollution contributes to California warming mongabay.com March 14, 2007
The researchers estimate that Asia may generate as much as 75 percent of black carbon, a type of particulate pollution that impacts atmospheric temperatures by absorbing sunlight and reducing surface radiation. Overall, say the researchers, black carbon has a net warming effect on local climate. "The soot heating of the atmosphere exceeds the surface dimming and, as a result, the long-range, transported soot amplifies the global warming due to increase in carbon dioxide," said Professor V. Ramanathan at Scripps. The researchers note that while "the transported black-carbon pollution is an extremely small component of air pollution at land surface levels, it has a significant heating effect on the atmosphere at altitudes above two kilometers (7,000 feet). The particles influence the Pacific Ocean region, which drives much of Earth's climate," according to a news release from Scripps. "That's the primary concern we have with these aerosols," said Scripps graduate student Odelle Hadley. "They can really affect global climate." "[This] is a startling finding by itself, but its potential importance is magnified by the fact that black carbon is believed to have a disproportional impact on regional climate," said Guido Franco, technical lead for climate-change research at the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program. Ramanathan is now examining where black carbon has an impact on regional precipitation levels. Citation: Hadley, O.L., V. Ramanathan, G.R. Carmichael, Y.Tang, C.E. Corrigan, G.C. Roberts, G.S. Mauger (2007), Trans-Pacific transport of black carbon and fine aerosols (D <2.5 µm) into North America, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D05309, doi:10.1029/2006JD007632. This article is based on a news release from Scripps. Comments? News options
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