Posted on 12/08/2004 10:49:23 AM PST by cogitator
Massive air pollution casts Asian haze over global climate
A cloud of pollution which has been identified in the skies across Asia travels long distances across the Indian ocean and is now threatening to make the entire planet a drier place, experts warned Wednesday.
"There is a nexus between local air pollution and global climate change," Mylvakanam Iyngararasan, senior programme specialist for the United Nations Environment Programme, told the annual "Better Air Quality" conference at a meeting in the home of the Taj Mahal.
"Research suggests that there will be a large drying-out effect from the air pollution we see now. Harmful chemicals, aerosols and other pollutants impact cloud formation. India has experienced severe droughts in the last few years.
"Pollution from China can be blown in days to India or in a matter of weeks travel to Europe so pollution really is a trans-border problem," he added.
Jitendra Shah, senior environment engineer with the World Bank in Washington, said Asian countries needed "to do their bit to keep the neighbourhood clean."
"No country can build a giant air filter on its borders so all countries have a responsibility to clean their own house in order to keep the neighbourhood clean," said Shah.
Experts also noted there were ample studies which showed there was a blanket of chemicals and dust from cars, aerosols and industrial smokestacks in South Asia.
In 1998, Indian-born US scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan used planes, ships, satellites and a team of 250 scientists from 15 countries to track a cloud of pollution dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud" that hung over the Indian Ocean.
The cloud has injected intense rancour between the United States and developing countries over the cause of global warming.
The discovery provoked denials from Indian officials who felt the country was being singled out as a culprit in global warming and was seen as vindicating the Bush administration when it pulled out of the global Kyoto climate treaty.
Ramanathan has maintained that Los Angeles, New Delhi, Bombay, Beijing and Cairo contribute the most to a worldwide circle of pollution.
"Pollution is by no means restricted to the Asian region," countered Indian scientist A.K Singhal. "There is a haze over Los Angeles and a thick plume of pollution over most big North American cities," he added.
"There is no way we can contain air between city boundaries so we have to be concerned about the long-range transport of air pollutants in Asia which have serious climate change implications," said Elisea Gozum, former secretary of the Philippines environment department.
About 500 delegates are attending the Agra meeting hosted by India's environment ministry, the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities -- a grouping of government agencies, NGOs and others -- and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
Instead of worrying about real pollution, we instead have focused on the boogyman of CO2.
There has to be something wrong here, China and India are exempt from Kyoto. This clearly means that these countries do not pollute. Substitute "US" anywhere you see China or India written. Everyone knows pollution is Bush's fault.
(/sarcasm off)
As far as the scientific study of current climate goes, that's essentially been proven. The arguments from global warming skeptics are now more focused on the amount of warming that will occur in this century, not IF warming will occur in this century. The position of the informed global warming skeptics is that the warming in this century will tend toward the minimum change indicated by climate models.
I beleive they are exempt from the Kyoto Protocols.
Btw...where are the pics of these massive clouds?
As you know, CO2 is part of the situation, but I support the position that technology and shifts in energy production methods will handle that. Smoke and soot emissions in developing countries are more easily mitigated and reducing them will have a more significant effect than paltry CO2 emissions controls.
Ahem...
North America Absorbing Carbon Dioxide At Surprisingly High Rate, Team Reports
"We know that we who reside in the United States emit about 6.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year," said Taro Takahashi, Doherty Senior Research Scientist, associate director of Lamont-Doherty, Columbia's earth sciences campus in Palisades, N.Y., and an author of the report. "As an air mass travels from west to east, it should receive carbon dioxide and the East Coast concentration of CO2 should be higher than on the West Coast.
"But observations tell us otherwise. The mean atmospheric CO2 concentration on the East Coast has been observed to be lower than that over the Pacific coast. This means that more CO2 is taken up by land ecosystems over the United States than is released by industrial activities."
I assume you're being humorous. Almost all of China is an ecological and environmental disaster area.
Exactly why the US was right in refusing to sign on the Kyoto Accords. Very skewed..against the US, of course.
Nonsense. Where's the baseline?
That is the assumption by religion of globull warmers, no one really knows the linkage between CO2 and tempreture. Since increases in CO2 usually lags increases in tempreture, the relationship if any would appear to be opposite of what is assumed.
Yup...looks like Switzerland is in trouble. Massive cloud all along the Italian border.
/sarcasm.
Seriously, China has he biggest aggregate problem and WE are the bad guys??
It is bs.
Surface observations indicate that the planet warmed about 0.6 C in the 20th century, 0.8 C since 1850, and about 0.4 C since 1980. The fairly-rapid warming since 1980 has been cited in numerous scientific studies as being at least partially caused by human (anthropogenic) factors, of which the most significant is greenhouse gas emissions from energy production.
"Kinda makes the Kyoto protocol look flakier than ever."
Yes - to most people. Bush and others have known for a long time that Asia and other poor countries exempt from Kyoto are major polluters (industry, cutting/burning rain forests for 2 years of crops, etc.).
Kyoto is bad science AND bad politics. Thank goodness Bush is sticking to his guns on this one even if the French will just hate us more.
If you're still interested in discussion of the differences between glacial-interglacial transitions and the current climate regime, I'm game. Are you really interested, or are you just going to blow off any scientific explanations that I offer?
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