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 EMBARGOED BY NatureFOR RELEASE ON Sunday, July 25, 2010 10:00 AM PDTThursday, July 22, 2010 Study During Beijing Olympics Pollution Clampdown Reveals Importance of Climate-Neutral Air Quality Laws Scripps researchers find marked differences between east and south Asian black carbon emissions during 2008 games Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego researchers say carefully balanced mitigation of air pollution is necessary to keep greenhouse effects in check after an analysis of east Asian air sampled during and after the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.Soot and other forms of the particulate air pollutant black carbon vary in their ability to cause global warming, meaning that the effects of pollution control campaigns will vary based on which sources of pollution are targeted. Black carbon is a major component of soot - produced in diesel exhaust, wood-burning and other activities - and is increasingly viewed as a major contributor to global and regional warming. American and Korean scientists behind the analysis found that fossil fuel-based soot particles ejected into the atmosphere are more efficient at trapping sun's heat than soot particles produced by biomass burning.  Chinese officials enacted strict air pollution control measures during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing to safeguard the health of athletes and event visitors. Photo: Shihzao. The difference comes from the relative amount of sulfates intermingled with each type of black carbon. Brightly surfaced sulfate particles are often produced during the burning of coal and other fossil fuels but can have a mitigating effect against global warming by reflecting solar radiation instead of absorbing it. Removal of sulfate pollution without corresponding removal of black carbon could exacerbate global warming by diminishing their net cooling effect. Results of the National Science Foundation-funded study appear in the July 25 online issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. "In-situ sampling of air can give us practical insights into mitigation of climate change," said Scripps climate and atmospheric scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan, the study's lead researcher. Scripps scientists joined colleagues from Seoul National University, University of Wisconsin and University of Iowa during the Cheju ABC Plume-Monsoon Experiment (CAPMEX), named for the Korean island located southeast of Beijing that served as the project's base. In 2008, the researchers collected air samples using unmanned aircraft and ground-based air intake instruments. They compared the east Asian air with south Asian air sampled in earlier campaigns. Samples came from aerosol plumes over Shanghai and the Yellow Sea that contained black carbon from sources ranging from wood-burning kitchen stoves in rural areas to urban traffic exhaust and ship exhaust.  CAPMEX lead researcher V. Ramanathan "There remains uncertainty as to the absolute importance of these three factors, but they all play contributing roles," said study co-author Greg Carmichael, who is Karl Kammermeyer Professor, Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering at the University of Iowa. The researchers found that urban sources that dominated the samples from the Beijing plume generated the highest ratio of black carbon to sulfates and thus had the greatest atmospheric warming potential. From the Shanghai plume, which contains black carbon from regions that use less fossil fuel, and the Yellow Sea plume, which captured emissions from ships that tend to use low-quality, sulfate-rich fuels, the ratio was much smaller. The delineation of sources could be used to guide future air pollution control in Southeast Asia, said Ramanathan. "As we reduce sulfate pollution, we must reduce black carbon by even a larger percentage," said Ramanathan. "Targeting fossil fuel black carbon would gain us even more mitigation potential." # # # Note to broadcast and cable producers: University of California, San Diego provides an on-campus satellite uplink facility for live or pre-recorded television interviews. Please phone or e-mail the media contact listed above to arrange an interview. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at University of California, San Diego, is one of the oldest, largest and most important centers for global science research and education in the world. The National Research Council has ranked Scripps first in faculty quality among oceanography programs nationwide Now in its second century of discovery, the scientific scope of the institution has grown to include biological, physical, chemical, geological, geophysical and atmospheric studies of the earth as a system. Hundreds of research programs covering a wide range of scientific areas are under way today in 65 countries. The institution has a staff of about 1,300, and annual expenditures of approximately $155 million from federal, state and private sources. Scripps operates one of the largest U.S. academic fleets with four oceanographic research ships and one research platform for worldwide exploration. |
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