Soot Is Warming the World — a Lot 251
sciencehabit writes "Soot is bad stuff all around, whether you're breathing it into your lungs or it's heating the atmosphere by absorbing more of the sun's energy. But a new 4-year, 232-page assessment (PDF) of soot's role in climate finds that the combustion product could be warming the world twice as much as previously thought. The study points policymakers toward the best targets for reducing climate-warming soot emissions while at the same time improving the health of billions of people."
Global Dimming (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And here I thought it was the cars (Score:2, Interesting)
because water vapor is a tremendously more important greenhouse gas than 1/3000th of our atmosphere (CO2) that has a self-limiting (logarithmic) saturation effect in its ability to absorb certain frequencies of light
This is an example of a statement that is both true and pointless, because while it is true that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, it is also true that adding CO2 to the atmosphere can have an effect.
And that effect, including its magnitude, is entirely the question.