Soot's role in warming underestimated

Matt McGrath in BBC News: New research says that black carbon, or soot, is making a much larger contribution to global warming than previously recognised. Scientists say that particles from diesel engines and wood burning could be having twice as much warming effect as assessed in past estimates.

They say it ranks second only to carbon dioxide as the most important climate warming agent. The research has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

Black carbon aerosols have been known to warm the atmosphere for many years by absorbing sunlight. They also speed the melting of ice and snow. This new study concludes the dark particles are having a warming effect approximately two thirds that of carbon dioxide, and greater than methane.

"The large conclusion is that forcing due to black carbon in the atmosphere is larger," lead author Sarah Doherty told BBC News. "The value the IPCC gave in their 4th assessment report in 2007 is half of what we are presenting in this report - it's a little bit shocking,"...

An open wood fire, shot by Edoddridge, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license