Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 27 September 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5590, pp. 2214 - 2215
DOI: 10.1126/science.1076866
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

Also see the archival list of Science's Compass: Enhanced Perspectives

CLIMATE CHANGE:
Enhanced: Soot Takes Center Stage

William L. Chameides and Michael Bergin

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are well known to warm Earth's atmosphere. Most particles have the reverse cooling effect, but as Chameides and Bergin discuss in their Perspective, soot, or black carbon, warms the atmosphere. They highlight the report by Menon et al., who show in a model study that black carbon may have influenced droughts and flooding in China over the last 20 years. Understanding of the climatic effects of black carbon remains, however, limited, largely because of uncertainties in the techniques used to measure black carbon and characterize its radiative properties.

The authors are at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. E-mail: wcham{at}eas.gatech.edu

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Variability in morphology, hygroscopicity, and optical properties of soot aerosols during atmospheric processing.
R. Zhang, A. F. Khalizov, J. Pagels, D. Zhang, H. Xue, and P. H. McMurry (2008)
PNAS 105, 10291-10296
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)