Soot vs. CO2, the climatology upset

[leebert]

China's soot heating Pacific region, Western USA, Arctic

Easily 40 percent of the observed atmospheric warming in the Pacific is due to the shroud of soot drifting eastward from Asia. Prof. V. Ramanathan and fellow researchers are reporting that soot's 2.5 W/cu.m. green house effect is partially offset by its surface dimming effect, such that its net effect is still 1 W/cu.m. With the vast Pacific covering 30 percent of the Earth's surface, aerosol soot - black carbon particulates - plays a significant factor in global warming, potentially 12 percent of all global warming.

This westerly mid-atmospheric haze of soot is eventually depleted as it falls on North America. Up to 75 percent of the soot hitting the Western USA is from China, potentially causing 30 percent of regional warming in the Western USA. It's also believed as sooty snowfall is deposited in the American Sierras and Rockies, the dirty snow actually causes earlier snow melts and glacier loss as a result of the increased heat absorption from soot-darkened snow and ice.

Worse yet, a 2003 NASA study found that soot originating in Asia is predominantly responsible for most of the Arctic ice loss as the dirtied snow is more prone to progressive melting. Dr. James Hansen and colleagues believe that "...black soot may be responsible for 25 percent of observed global warming over the past century." With the research indicating that soot is responsible for up to 90 percent of the loss of Arctic sea ice & earlier tundra thaws - accounting for nearly 25 percent of all global warming - readily-implemented soot abatement technologies could go a long way in curbing global climate change.

Unlike greenhouse gases which can persist for decades, soot disperses within a few months, if not weeks. The globe-spanning effects of soot in the vast Asian Brown Cloud might actually account for easily a third of all observed global warming. Were China to scrub soot from its smokestacks, the Asian Brown Cloud could be mitigated easily by half, and the world might be able to breath a sigh of relief as other emission-curbing technologies are phased in.

Salient points:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/03/16/chinasoot_pla.html
"...Over the Pacific it appears that soot allows higher air to absorb 2 to 2.5 watts more sunshine per square meter, the team reported. Down at the ocean surface, the dimming effect reduces solar heating by almost 1.5 watts per square meter. That means the soot creates a net heat gain to the atmosphere of about 0.5 to 1 watt per square meter."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3333493.stm
"...They believe soot is twice as potent as carbon dioxide, a main greenhouse gas, in raising surface air temperatures."

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070701162100data_trunc_sys.shtml
"...The conventional thinking is that brown clouds have masked as much as 50 percent of the global warming by greenhouse gases through the so-called global dimming," said Ramanathan. "This study reveals that over southern and eastern Asia, the soot particles in the brown clouds are intensifying the atmospheric warming trend caused by greenhouse gases by as much as 50 percent."

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0509pollution.html
"..The researchers found the amount of sunlight absorbed by soot was two-to-four times larger than previously assumed ... also to previous underestimates of the amount of soot in the atmosphere. The net result is soot contributes about twice as much to warming the world as had been estimated by the IPCC."

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/dec/HQ_03420_black_soot.html
"...New research from NASA scientists suggests emissions of black soot alter the way sunlight reflects off snow. According to a computer simulation, black soot may be responsible for 25 percent of observed global warming over the past century."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3333493.stm
"...soot is twice as effective as carbon dioxide in raising global surface air temperatures ... high soot emissions may have contributed substantially to global warming over the past century, notably to the growing trend in recent decades for ice, snow and permafrost to melt earlier in the spring .... soot may cause glaciers, sea ice and ice sheets to melt at lower temperatures than they would otherwise."

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070506202633data_trunc_sys.shtml
"... The effect is more conspicuous in Arctic areas, where ... more than 90 percent of the warming could be attributed to dirty snow."

Running a couple of numbers on the back of a sooty virtual napkin:
22 percent AGW: 25 percent AGW from Artic, 90% of which is due to soot, mostly from Asia.
12 percent of AGW: 40 percent Pacific warming from soot, 30% of planet's surface, from the Asian Brown Cloud, mostly from China.

That could be 1/3rd (one third) of all the anomalous temp. increases observed, and I'm not even including seasonal slash&burn agriculture in the tropics & subtropics (I'm afraid their role is largely unknown at this time, but I can tell you that the smoke from the season burns in Yucatan reach all the way to Austin & beyond...).

The Asian Brown Cloud has long been renown for disrupting India's monsoons. With this new finding, however, we can come to a new understanding of how airborne soot might be having a double-whammy effect on glacial packs in the Himalayas. The glaciers lay at the same altitude as the soot-heated air & are also suffering dirty snow caused by sootfall.

The problem is discerning what can be mitigated readily and what can't and which are point-source. Cook fires & diesel might account for 20-30 percent of airborne soot throughout Asia but the rest might well be easily identified point-source emissions from industrial sources that can readily implement soot abatement tech. The Russians have huge, soot-emitting oil drilling sites above the Arctic circle, so it may be that not all of of the Arctic & tundra thaw is from China & S.E. Asia. Most researchers, however, are chasing after Asian emissions. There are also remaining questions about seasonal slash-and-burn agriculture practices in the tropics and subtropics and their far-ranging effects. For instance, a pall of smoke from vast fires in the Yucatan can reach as far as Austin, Texas and beyond.

None of this is to discount CO2's ultimately more-pernicious effects, since CO2 persists in the atmosphere on the order of decades (as opposed to aerosols, like soot or sulfates that only persist for months at most). But it also suggests a minor upset in climatology with this new understanding of soot's role - and the broader role of darker aerosols - in compounding warming that heretofore had been solely ascribed to CO2 & other greenhouse gases. That's actually a good thing, because it may help us out of various conundrums.

First of all, the clear and definitive aerobot readings of V. Ramanathan's team give climate skeptics some definitive proof of real, ongoing climate change within an actual weather system - the vast Asian Brown Cloud - and the manifold and complex effects caused by atmospheric greenhouse agents. With a review of climate models, we may be able to ameliorate some of the technical concerns with computer models that have attempted to refactor variables like reflectivity and manifold feedback loops that compounded CO2's effect maximum (a logarithmic effect asymptote where any additional increases in CO2 concentration no longer cause any additional temperature increase or interactions).

Soot abatement programs will give environmentalists and the public a solid first step in addressing the climate change problem while also improving air quality worldwide and restoring the Arctic. It'll give climate science a chance to hone its predictions for the remaining greenhouse gases of CO2, Methane, Nitrous Oxide and HCFCs.

As soot trapping technologies are phased in we may be able to observe the first real, tangible effects in actually fighting climate change.

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Other readings....
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Solar radiance & Kilimanjaro:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070611153942.htm
"...particularly on Kilimanjaro -- processes are at work that are far different from those that have diminished glacial ice in temperate regions.. They attribute the ice decline primarily to ... the vertical shape of the ice's edge ... decreased snowfall ... solar radiation. Since air near the mountain's ice almost always is well below freezing, there typically is no melting. Instead ice loss is mainly through a process called sublimation, which requires more than eight times as much energy as melting."

Deforestation, loss of microclimate precipitation at Kilimanjaro
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0923_030923_kilimanjaroglaciers.htm

Increased solar radiance over the past 100 years?
http://www.physorg.com/news6892.html
http://lasp.colorado.edu/science/solar_influence/index.htm

===
Kyoto Projects harming Ozone:
http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSL137011320070813

Clean coal:
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1481789120070914

[thereismore]

1. we are screwed. nt

[leebert]

4. re: we are screwed

Hardly. Soot is easy to abate.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Reducing particulates is trivial compared to removing CO2. This make China look even worse.

It is clear that they frankly don't care.

[leebert]

3. I tend to agree

S. Asia's atmospheric pollution is a terrible mess, the Asian Brown Cloud's been a known problem since Kerry & Boxer voted against Kyoto. The Chinese, being on the list of "Kyoto poor countries," are *making* money from selling carbon credits via Kyoto projects (see prior link). Once political inertia has set in along with a known money pump, it makes negotiating new strategies all the harder.

[The Traveler]

5. Interesting ... and suggests a possibility of useful action

Though to be honest, I think we are already out of time. Positive feedback processes triggered by the warming of human activity are kicking in ... like the melting of Siberian permafrost, which is releasing huge amounts of methane (20 times more effective a greenhouse gas than C02) into the atmosphere. At some point (if not already) the effect of the feedback processes will overwhelm the effect of human activity, and at that point we have no ability to stop this.

But it might not be too late ... so we better take action now while we can. And I would think that could begin with getting on board with something like Kyoto and insisting the Russians and Chinese do likewise.

[leebert]

6. Tundra methane

Positive feedback processes triggered by the warming of human activity are kicking in ... like the melting of Siberian permafrost, which is releasing huge amounts of methane (20 times more effective a greenhouse gas than C02) into the atmosphere.

True enough, but then maybe a total disaster can be averted if the tundra can be allowed to freeze w/ soot seriously mitigated. It may be cold comfort but methane doesn't persist as long as CO2, it persists in the atmosphere for 20-30 years, not 50-100 like CO2.

Soil loss is another factor, in the erosional loss of productive arable land to help mitigate CO2 in the atmosphere. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39083

I think getting *ALL* nations onboard, regardless of per capita emissions, will be crucial in any future negotiated international programs. We can't allow venues for backdooring emissions that end up under-cutting signatory nations. China's per-capita soot emissions beat everybody else's, for instance, but were they to sign onto a Soot Treaty as a "Soot rich country" replete with a soot-credit trading system, they could be doubling their costs of production - paying for soot credits while losing business to "soot poor nations" that can undercut the Chinese. Turning airborne emissions into contraband is hard for any nation to swallow, unless they don't mind off-shoring production elsewhere.

I'd rather not use emission trading schemes myself, just have everyone tackle the problems straight on w/ a straight phased approach rather than shell games of globalized & transferred credits that are prone to being scammed....

[GliderGuider]

7. Hardly an "upset"

Fred Pearce takes a look at the research into soot and other aerosols in his latest book "With Speed and Violence". He points out that the research on soot's influence on GW is currently all over the map. The reason is that soot has both warming and cooling properties, and their balance may be different depending on circumstances. He also indicates that the cooling effect due to shading is intense but local, while the warming effects due to the absorption and re-radiation of visible light and infrared may be less intense but extend much further. Executive summary, people are working on the problem, but we really don't have a clear picture of soot's actions just yet.

It's true that soot is easier to remediate than CO2 without restricting the activities that generate it. That makes it attractive to both environmentalists and politicians. It's also a direct killer, unlike CO2, so it's a useful thing to do.

To suggest that we should look at soot abatement programs as a replacement for CO2 reductions would be the height of irresponsibility, however. The primary forcing role of CO2 in climate change is far too well understood and far too damaging for us to take our eyes off it.

[leebert]

8. re: new findings

When was this book last edited?

Look at the links, follow V. Ramanathan's latest findings, just released early August 2007. His sorties of robotic sonde planes show soot playing a much more aggressive role than previously thought, up to HALF of what was ascribed to CO2 w/in brown clouds.

I think the results were consistent enough that it was worth his pointing out. Presumably the clouds are sufficiently ladened with sulfates that even the offset differential still factored against soot & Ramanathan made his statement knowing full well of that fact.

I know there's been a slow trend in researching aerosols over the past few years, and as recently as March 2007, IPCC reports have ascribed aerosols as a largely unknown quantity. If we're talking 25 percent AGW just from the Arctic alone, by all means, let's go tackle the soot problem first.

I'm not in the least suggesting we don't phase in CO2 reductions as well, but soot abatement, as Ramanathan himself pointed out, might help lead us out of a conundrum.

It comes down to this: How much *IS* airborne soot actually warming the globe? Slash & burn, diesel, cook fires, etc. What other strategies *besides* CO2 abatement are more readily implemented today? The soot problem will have to be addressed either way, w/ 90% of the Arctic melt-off being identified as from soot.

IAC, here're some other points to consider:

CO2 sequestration:
http://biopact.com/2007/08/clean-coal-project-zerogen-achieves.html

ZeroGen, Australia’s most advanced clean coal power demonstration project owned by the Queensland government, has achieved <*.pdf> a significant milestone with the completion of the first stage of its test drilling program. The ZeroGen Clean Coal Power Demonstration Project aims to enable deep cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the atmosphere by combining the technologies of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) (schematic, click to enlarge).

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-09/giot-rai092402.php

http://www.physorg.com/news80912612.html

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39083

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1481789120070914

[leebert]

9. Typo... sorry...

When was this book last edited?

Look at the links, follow V. Ramanathan's latest findings, just released early August 2003.

Sorry, that should've been "August 2007."

My bad. I corrected the orig. message.

IAC, Ramanathan's 8/2007 announcement's barely a month old. He & his colleagues expressed total surprise at their findings.

Hansen's 2003 findings on soot's role in the Arctic (25% of all AGW) wasn't given the wide play it deserved, IMO.

And in light of Ramanathan's findings on soot's 50% role within brown clouds (covering a broad swath of Asia, the Indian Ocean & a 40% role over a great deal of the Pacific), we might have an opportunity to tackle the problem with a good-faith collaboration with industry, China, etc. It might also help explain the early melts of snowpacks in the Sierras & perhaps the glacial recession in the Northern Rockies (conjecture on my part...).

But is there anything, seriously, the West can do to make a difference if Asia keeps spewing out crap at its current rate of increase, unabated? Even if they hit an asymptote somewhere down the road, there are other countries that will be bringing further waves of industrialization, cheap cars, dirty smokestacks.... Everyone wants to the join the club, so let's help them do it in a way that doesn't turn over the apple cart at the same time we also clean up our act.

I don't see that anyone can be exempt in this, or someone will balk and complain that they're being asked to cut their own throat. I think this is where American nationalism has been a sticking point for the past several years.

[GliderGuider]

11. Pearce references Ramanathan's research.

That includes his Global Albedo Project, as well as his work on INDOEX.

[leebert]

13. Cool...

I'm just spreading the word... I'm hoping, honestly, like Ramanathan, that this can inspire a first quick step leading to broader initiatives.

[GliderGuider]

10. When was the book last edited?

The publication date is 2007, and it includes references to research published late last year. The book is a tour (de force) of the cutting edge of climate research efforts. The topics it addresses haven't gone through the lengthy homogenization process required for inclusion in the IPCC reports, so are much more timely than the bureaucratic pap of the IPCC.

I'm not saying we should ignore soot, but let's recognize that it is but one of many factors we need to address. James Hansen recommends action on soot, but places it third among the various forcing factors, after CO2 and methane. It's easier to address, and we have many well-understood reasons to do it.

90% of the Arctic melt-off is due to soot? I'll hang onto my skepticism a while longer, thanks. I could even buy "perhaps more than 50%", but the state of climate research in general makes such a definitive statement impossible to accept.

Your links also contain too many references to clean coal technology for me to feel entirely comfortable with them. The promotion of "Clean Coal" is nothing but greenwashing of the most blatant and egregious sort.

[leebert]

12. Discerning one link from the other...

The "clean coal" cites are my own, unrelated to the soot findings. I don't see the world curtailing its use of coal any time soon. Are these purported techs greenwashing? I don't know. How clean can coal be made? I make no claims that it's ever going to be the cleanest energy source. Cumulative Hg & As emissions worry me more than CO2, there are limits to what can be scrubbed out, so coal is a problem, no doubt.

I quickly reviewed the IPCC overview charts of 2007 & they don't in the least mention soot. Even if we discount the Arctic soot-driven melt-off to 50%, that'd come roughly to 12% Arctic soot AGW & 12% Pacific soot haze AGW, so I'm ballparking at 1/4 instead of 1/3 AGW ... that's still something to work with *now* while everything else is phased in as well. CO2 mitigation, like it or not will be phased in, but soot abatement could actually be a much faster program.

Hansen's most recent comments on soot that I'm aware of back-date to 2003, so I don't know what else he's said. It seems there's some variance in opinion between researchers like Ramanathan who see a pragmatic compromise for the short term & Hansen who's insistent on broader action keeping in mind the long term. I like Ramanathan's stepwise thinking - how to get from Point A to Point Z.

As for myself, I'm just spreading the word around, seeing what people make of it. It's worth the bother & consideration, IMO.

[GliderGuider]

14. Thanks. I understand where you're coming from better now.

And yes, soot needs to be on the agenda. One of the things I think is that a major global economic crash in 10-15 years is going to sharply curtail the demand for coal. That might give us the opportunity we need to address soot and CO2 together. It won't get us ahead of the climate curve, but it would keep us from damaging our kids' world quite so much.

[leebert]

15. Slash & burn factor

If we could phase down the price of oil via conservation efforts, why shouldn't we preferentially subsidize sterno, kerosene & fertilizer to the tropics in order to help preserve the remaining tropical rain forests?

Deforestation now has mostly to do with slash & burn itinerant farmers cutting wood to open new fields as well as gathering fire wood. These folks want a life for themselves and their families. Let's give them the tools to work the soils they have instead of being itinerant farmers.

I know fertilizer use has its drawbacks, but that'd be Phase II. :-)

[XemaSab]

16. Welcome to DU!

:hi: