Soot Is Cited as Big Factor in Global Warming

NY Times ^ | Dec 25, 2003 | AP

[neverdem]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 — NASA scientists say soot, mostly from diesel engines, is causing as much as a quarter of all observed global warming by reducing the ability of snow and ice to reflect sunlight.

Their findings on how soot affects reflective ability raise new questions about climate change caused by humans.

"We suggest that soot contributes to near worldwide melting of ice that is usually attributed solely to global warming," the scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen and Dr. Larissa Nazarenko, wrote in a paper published this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Soot is a more all-around `bad actor' than has been appreciated," the scientists wrote.

Soot is blackened material formed mainly from carbon particles that are, along with salts and dust, byproducts of burning fossil fuels and vegetation.

Dr. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Dr. Nazarenko, a staff associate at Goddard, found that soot was twice as potent as carbon dioxide in changing global surface air temperatures in the Arctic and the Northern Hemisphere.

Greenland may be an exception, they said, because it is downwind from Canadian forests and has little man-made pollution.

The biggest source of soot in developed countries is diesel fuel, they said, but major sources elsewhere include burning wood, animal dung, vegetable oil and other biofuels.

Dr. Hansen told The Associated Press that he and his co-author estimated that the soot effect was equivalent to putting a 1-watt bulb, the size of a miniature bulb on a Christmas tree, over every two square yards in the Northern Hemisphere. The effect is greater in northernmost snow regions, and almost nonexistent in the tropics, he said.

Levels of airborne soot as high as about 100 parts per billion were found in the Alps, enough to reduce the snow's ability to reflect light rather than absorb it from about 98 percent down to 80 percent to 90 percent, Dr. Hansen said. In spring and summer, as the snow melts and some soot accumulates on the surface, the remaining snow is even darker, he said.

[neverdem]

What I like about the articles on the soot hypothesis is that they undermine the rationale of the Kyoto Protocol, i.e. greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, give more time to obtaining better data and developing better models to account for solar radiation, as well as show that the enviro-nuts worship ideas without thinking.

[neverdem]

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah Ping

[edger]

Where I grew up, we thought Stinkin' Diesel was one word.

[Mike Darancette]

NASA scientists say soot, mostly from diesel engines, is causing as much as a quarter of all observed global warming

The article does not support the inference that says soot comes mostly from diesel engines. The article says that most soot in developed countries come from diesel engines and says nothing quantitative about soot from third world sources.

[Uncle George]

Those little volcanos couldn't help could they? They have been spewing trillions of tons of soot for 10000000 years.

[explodingspleen]

We must shut down the geothermal power plants!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The fact that NASA is participating in the global warming fraud is yet more evidence that it has devolved into a cesspool of bureaucratic CYA turf-protectors interested only in securing as much Congressional funding as possible.

I will never support a US space program until NASA is abolished and anyone currently employed in a management position by NASA permanently disallowed from being employed by its successor.

[UNGN]

It would be pretty stupid to blame Diesel engines when burning stuff like farm fields and protected old growth forests puts much more soot in the air than Diesels.

Enviro wackos are anti Diesel because SUV's will get 40% better fuel economy and the price of gas will drop back below $1.00.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Well, if you go by the thread "Aliens Cause Global Warming" it is the little green men. So, is it Alien Soot?

[fellowpatriot]

It couldn't be the volcanoes, don't they tend to cool the atmosphere when they erupt?

[First_Salute]

"You" can thank very much the movement of industry from clean air countries such as the U.S.A., to the southern hemisphere; the smog ring around the lower half of the planet is astonishing.

[TheDon]

We didn't do anything!

[Looking for Diogenes]

Those little volcanos couldn't help could they?

The major discharge from volcanoes that I've seen is ash, which is light colored. Cinders are dark, but I don't think they account for the same degree of surface covering as ash does.

[Ronzo]

Hard to believe this one guy could be responsible for global warming...

Vin Diesel

[meenie]

It is amazing from personal observation that there seems to be a large amount of soot in the air when forest fires are burning. During the winter months when the fire season is past, I don't see all the soot in the air from these diesel rigs. Conclusion, there is a lot of invisible soot around.

[gitmo]

It must'a been hotter'n heck back when we heated with wood and coal!

[petuniasevan]

Here we go again - shades of Kyoto...

[AmericanVictory]

It will be interesting to see what happens when we demonstrate that we can burn cleaner and cheaper without diesel and its present boondoggles in California. What then will these people do to provide an excuse for more centralized command govenment control and scarcity for the non-elites? When entrepreneurial affort allows the teams in Bakersfield once again to practice outside and truckers no longer have to cross over into Nevada to buy fuel that gives them the power they need, what will the totalitarians fix upon next? It will only take a couple of years and the whole cooperative dance between big boondoggle and environmentally justified socialism will be as transparent as Saudi sponsorship of terrorism and our sbsurd defferral to it for all these past years since 1981.

[DeepDish]

"Here we go again - shades of Kyoto..."

If Nasa is right about the soot, it throws a major wrench into the greenhouse gas hypothesis. If 25% of the observed warming turns out to be not caused co2 etc., then the disaster model being shopped to the people by the Kyoto types will have been shown to be flawed, perhaps fatally.

Also there is evidence that at least half of the observed warming could be caused by the sun warming up.

http://www.john-daly.com/

You can find info about the solar warming at the above link. About halfway down the page.

The more research that comes out about climate, the more I am convinced that greenhouse gas is just that, gas.

[backhoe]

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