NASA Finds Soot Has Impact on Global Climate

Here's a good place to start:

As for your former point, what do you consider "appreciable"? Is a tenth of a degree Centigrade per decade "appreciable"?

You have the peer reviewed physical evidence that atmospheric warming due to black soot particles is 0.1^o C/decade?

Global Tropospheric for all causes is on the order of 0.04^o C/decade. How much are you going to attribute to soot, as opposed to Solar and other natural and causes remembering that human sourced GHG's impact is only 0.28% of Total Greenhouse effect

You said this: Of course there is the little problem that global tropospheric temperatures are not rising in any appreciable fashion

and I asked if 0.1 C /decade is appreciable, because if you average the results of the two groups that are measuring the increase in temperature of the troposphere, that's what you get. And this is what is stated in the press release I posted in a separate thread: tropospheric temperatures are rising, globally, and more significantly, measurably. You have to define "appreciably". (And it's worth noting that Northern Hemisphere troposheric temperatures are rising at about twice the rate as the global tropospheric temperature rise).

In reply to:

You have the peer reviewed physical evidence that atmospheric warming due to black soot particles is 0.1 C/decade?

the answer is "no", because that was not what you originally said, nor is it that claim that is being made from these new results. All climate factors are contributing to the increase in tropospheric temperatures.

Responding to your latter point first: they can be encouraged, and they can be pushed. Withhold World Bank loans until they create a program to address soot emissions.

Go to it!!

Of course there is a little problem with getting the UN/World bank/WTO/GlobalAnything to say much as regards third world and China, much less enforce policies that might intrude on their internal affairs. Prime example being UN economic interventions as regard IRAQ, a useless exercise due to lack of enforcibility.

Time to charge a tax to those volcanos that are putting more soot than allowed! Sarcasm

According to a World Almanac that I have at home, the largest emitters of particulate matter in the world are volcanoes. Until they figure out how to control the volcanoes, I guess we'll just have to live with the problem. Sheesh! These people don't have enough to do, IMO.

Carolyn

And this is what is stated in the press release I posted in a separate thread: tropospheric temperatures are rising, globally, and more significantly, measurably.

When the study is peer reviewed, and NOAA adjusts its satellite temperature measurements to the data set monkeyed with in the article you posted, I'll accept that 0.07^oC when it is shown that "trend" is more than a short term artifact of the including volcanic activity in '85(a decline in temperature), and El-Nino effects of '98 & '03 (exceptional high excursions) then I might be able to accept the notion that there is some measurable trend that is comprised of growing solar activity, decadal switching of ocean currents, whatever else the earth comes up with naturally as well as some undertermined portion due to black soot.

+0.10^oC/decade all due to black soot? I rather doubt that in a dubious trend measurment of the +0.07^oC/decade quoted in the article.

But just to be on the safe side, you have my permission to go after China and India for burning wood, coal and dung on their cooking and heating fires, especially China's out of control coal burns.

Good luck.

According to a World Almanac that I have at home, the largest emitters of particulate matter in the world are volcanoes.

They are; when they erupt. Since volcanic activity is intermittent, the constant input of soot from fires and dirty combustion is more important to climate.

While I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the study on soot, I remain skeptical because of Hansen's involvement. His motivation has been non-scientific in the past. Even the article that you linked to shows evidence of political motivation. For example:

If the World Bank were to support investments in modern technology and air quality control in India and China, e.g., the reductions in tropospheric ozone and black carbon would not only improve local health and agricultural productivity, but also benefit global climate and air quality.

1) Why is Hansen, a climatologist, suggesting how this reduction would be paid for? As a scientist, he should simply state that India and China improvements in air quality controls may solve the problem - and let politicians figure out how to pay for it. He is still advocating socialism here.

2) He states that such controls would improve local health and agricultural productivity. But post #18 provided information that shows that the effects of Indian and Chinese soot is felt up to 1000 miles from the source. He is simply speculating about agricultural productivity so that he can "sell" his idea

the constant input of soot from fires and dirty combustion is more important to climate.

We have yet to estabish the degree of affect on the climate.

The researchers found the amount of sunlight absorbed by soot was two-to-four times larger than previously assumed. This larger absorption is due in part to the way the tiny carbon particles are incorporated inside other larger particles: absorption is increased by light rays bouncing around inside the larger particle.

According to the IPCC report alluded to in stating "the amount of sunlight absorbed by soot was two-to-four times larger"

http://www.nsc.org/ehc/climate/ccucla12.htm

Many of the particles in smoke are comparatively large or heavy and settle out quickly, falling close to the source. Others do not: particles that are especially small or light, and particles lofted into the higher levels of the atmosphere, such as the stratosphere, which begins about 5-10 miles up. Strong currents of wind circulation in the upper atmosphere may carry such particles a great distance and keep them aloft for years.
What is their relevance to climate? Well, for starters, airborne particles can absorb or reflect sunlight. By blocking sunlight or reflecting it back to space, particles diminish the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface and heating the lower atmosphere — a “global cooling” effect, much like that of a huge sunshade or parasol. Because most aerosols stay in the lower atmosphere and settle out within days, the cooling effect is mostly a short-term and regional one.
The cooling effect of aerosols is quite significant — significant enough to offset a portion of the “global warming” caused by greenhouse gases. The IPCC estimates the net direct cooling effect at about 0.5 Watts per square meter (Wm-2) on a global average, compared to a warming effect of about 2.43 Wm-2 from all human greenhouse emissions.

Which suggests the effect is 0.5 Watts per square meter (Wm-2) on global average of COOLING from white soots, vs a steadystate heating of approximately the same amount from black soots.

http://www.nsc.org/ehc/climate/ccucla12.htm

Soot is one kind of particle humans produce when they burn things. These solid particles, which often consist of nearly pure carbon, are of course very black. Black objects absorb almost all of the sunlight that hits them and reflect almost none of it. So soot particles tend to have a heating effect wherever they may be — upper or lower atmosphere. This heating effect reduces the amount of clouds, and the particles’ blackness reduces the reflectivity of clouds, amplifying the clouds’ warming effect.

Black carbon aerosols have gotten increasing attention from climate scientists in recent years as understanding of their importance has grown. "In fact, some scientists have suggested that the warming effect of black carbon may be enough to mostly offset the cooling effect of other aerosols."

Adjusting for Hansen's new estimate of 2-4 time the IPCC's numbers, The effect would be a heating amount proportionate to the rate of injection of the soot in equilibrium with that removed from the atmosphere by settling from the lower atmosphere of approximately 1.0-2.0 Watts per square meter (Wm-2) according to the report referenced in the current article.

Let's see according to Stefan-Boltzman relation, Black soot, as estimated by Hansen, would contribute a steady state 0.33^oC to atmospheric temperature at the current levels. Get rid of all black soot, and atomspheric temperature would drop a maximum of the 0.33^oC and at least 0.17^oC from Current global averages of about 0^oC.

At 0.17-0.33^oC reduction in current temperature I am somehow underwhelmed by the project.

Add in Kyoto, of:

" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "

Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia

Why 2100 we can trim a whole, 0.27-0.43^oC and wipe out global warming all together.

Why we could put more of the light colored particles (providently supplied by cometary debris Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle) in the atmosphere and we can look forward to a return to an ice age sometime in the next millenium.

Hmmm! Looking over my replay above, I suggest leaving well enough alone.

Discretion is the better part of valor.