News

UI researcher finds black carbon implicated in global warming

July 27, 2010

From UI News Services - July 27, 2010 (Iowa City) Increasing the ratio of black carbon to sulphate in the atmosphere increases climate warming, suggests a study conducted by a University of Iowa professor and his colleagues and published in the July 25 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Black carbons -- arising from such sources as diesel engine exhaust and cooking fires -- are widely considered a factor in global warming and are an important component of air pollution around the world, according to Greg Carmichael, Karl Kammermeyer Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in the UI College of Engineering and co-director of the UI's Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research. Sulfates occur in the atmosphere largely as a result of various industrial processes.

"These results had been indicated by theory but not verified by observations before this work," Carmichael said. "There is currently great interest in developing strategies to reduce black carbon as it offers the opportunity to reduce air pollution and global warming at the same time."

The authors suggest that climate mitigation policies should aim to reduce the ratio of black carbon to sulphate in emissions, as well as the total amount of black carbon released.

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