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Soot Called Major Cause of Global Warming
"STANFORD, California, February 8, 2001 (ENS) - Soot, the familiar black residue that coats fireplaces and darkens truck exhaust, may be a leading cause of global warming. A study in the current issue of the journal "Nature" [February 2001] indicates that soot may be the second biggest contributor to global warming - just behind the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide."
Soot in the Greenhouse (a commentary from the Nature issue referenced above)
"According to the traditional view of global heat balance, greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide warm the Earth by trapping infrared (low-frequency) radiation, while aerosol particles keep it cool by bouncing visible and ultraviolet (high-frequency) radiation back into space. This balance is upset by the injection of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which are almost certainly causing a global temperature rise.
Now it seems that air pollution is dealing the global heat balance a double-whammy. According to research by Mark Jacobson in this issue, black-carbon (soot) emissions from the burning of biomass and fossil fuels are interfering with the reflectivity of aerosols, darkening their colour so that they absorb more radiation. This reduces their cooling effect to such an extent that black carbon may be the second biggest cause of global warming after carbon dioxide."
Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario
"Aerosols. It is often assumed (IPCC 1996) that aerosol forcing will become more negative in the future, which would be true if all aerosols increased in present proportions. However, it is just as likely that aerosol forcing will become less negative, e.g., if sulfates decrease relative to black carbon. Black carbon reduces aerosol albedo, causes a semi-direct reduction of cloud cover, and reduces cloud particle albedo. All these effects cause warming. Conceivably a reduction of climate forcing by 0.5 W/m2 or more could be obtained by reducing black carbon emissions from diesel fuel and coal. This might become easier in the future with more energy provided via electricity grids from power plants. But quantitative understanding of the absorbing aerosol role in climate change is required to permit reliable policy recommendations."
THOMPSON AMENDMENT STRENGTHENS GLOBAL WARMING BILL TO TACKLE BLACK SOOT POLLUTION (I think this was August 2, 2001, based on the URL)
I've been wrong before, but on this one I think I'm right.
"quantitative understanding of the absorbing aerosol role in climate change is required to permit reliable policy recommendations"
read=> This is a possibility, but we have no data to prove it.
IPCC scientists believe that atmospheric soot has relatively little effect on world climate (IPCC, "Climate Change 1995" and Jan 21, 2002). Jacobson's studies do not include sulfates, which offset the effects of atmospheric black soot (LBL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Research Review, 1992). Jacobson's study provides no discusion of atmospheric black soot loading, no discussion of night time radiation release, and no discussion of soot loading historical trends in relation to observed warming trends. It simply observes that soot absorbs radiation (a well known fact) and then he performed some very simplistic modelling. Its almost as if he had a desired result in mind and used whatever methods he could to get that result.
I won't deny the benefits of reducing soot emmisions for cleaner air, but soot as a contributor to global warming is highly speculative at this point.
Secondly, I don't think the international community will buy into this. They will eventually realize it means that third world nations will have to live up to United States soot emmision standards. Since the unstated goal of Kyoto and its supporters is global wealth redistribution, and soot emmisions would end up hurting third world economies but not the US, this will never gain acceptance.