Soot packs a punch on Tibetan Plateau’s climate

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=851

Soot packs a punch on Tibetan Plateau’s climate

March 03, 2011

Frances White, PNNL, [phone]

Polluted snow causes early runoff, stronger monsoons in Asia

New research shows that soot from industrial and agricultural pollution landing on the Tibetan Plateau is causing snow to melt earlier on the plateau. As a result, India and China are experiencing wetter winters, drier summers and stronger monsoons.

RICHLAND, Wash. – In some cases, soot — the fine, black carbon silt that is released from stoves, cars and manufacturing plants — can pack more of a climatic punch than greenhouse gases, according to a paper published yesterday in the journal http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net/home.html">Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Michigan and NOAA found that soot landing on snow on the massive Tibetan Plateau can do more to alter snowmelt and monsoon weather patterns in Asia than carbon dioxide and soot in the air. Soot on snow causes the plateau's annual glacial melt to happen sooner each year, causing farmers below it to have less water for their crops in the summer. In a domino effect, the melting then prods two of the region's monsoon systems to become stronger over India and China.

"On the global scale, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide cause the most concern related to climate change," said Yun Qian, the paper's lead author and an atmospheric scientist at PNNL. "But our research shows that in some places like the Tibetan Plateau, soot can do more damage."

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