A new study indicates that the role in climate change for soot is twice as large as previous estimates. Soot has 66% of the impact of carbon dioxide. Mitigating soot would cost about $6 per ton of CO2 equivalent. CO2 mitigation costs about $100 per ton. Nextbigfuture has frequently written that soot is the most cost effective emission target for managing climate. It is also the one with the fastest results. Carbon dioxide mitigation does not impact temperatures for 50-80 years. Fully mitigating soot can also save 1-2 million lives by avoiding the disease from soot pollution.Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres - Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessmentThe full 242 pages is available for free.Black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in Earth's climate system. Black carbon is a type of carbonaceous material with a unique combination of physical properties. This assessment provides an evaluation of black-carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of all known and relevant processes and that is quantitative in providing best estimates and uncertainties of the main forcing terms: direct solar absorption, influence on liquid, mixed-phase, and ice clouds, and deposition on snow and ice.
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http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/01/soot-role-in-climate-is-twice-as-large.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/01/soot-role-in-climate-is-twice-as-large.html