Over the years, I've seen a lot of disturbing information in the professional journals on just how bad airborne soot is in South Asia, to the extent that climate is affected, not just there, but over all the northern Indian Ocean as well. This just adds to what we already know, but sometimes fail to appreciate:
The burning of wood, agricultural waste and animal manure for cooking is the largest source of black carbon in the air in that region, according to the team led by C. Venkataraman of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
"We therefore suggest that the control of these emissions through cleaner cooking technologies, in addition to reducing health risks to several hundred million users, could be of crucial importance to climate change mitigation in south Asia," the researchers wrote in a paper appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The effect of soot in the air over the Indian Ocean is some 10 times that of the so-called greenhouse gases, according to the researchers. The pollution causes the air to absorb more sunlight, warming the atmosphere and cooling the surface beneath.
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