Asian Scientist (Aug. 22, 2013) – Almost 80 percent of the soot that spreads from China to other parts of East Asia comes from city traffic and other forms of fossil-fuel combustion, such as home cooking.
That is the conclusion from a study published in Environmental Science and Technology which resolves long-standing questions about the sources of air pollution responsible for Asian’s infamous atmospheric brown clouds.
According to Örjan Gustafsson, who led the team including researchers from China, South Korea, Sweden and the United States, nobody has been certain about the exact sources of soot, or “black carbon,” air pollution from China.
People can inhale these tiny particles deep into their lungs and it is estimated that soot is responsible for 500,000 premature deaths every year in China alone.
Black carbon in the atmosphere also absorbs sunlight, and scientists think it is second only to carbon dioxide as a factor in global warming.
In their study, Gustafsson and his team identified the exact sources of black carbon in China by using a powerful carbon-14 identification method. They analyzed soot particles collected in Beijing, Shanghai, as well as in coastal southeast China and on Korea’s Jeju Island.
They found that fully four-fifths of the black carbon emitted in China comes from incomplete combustion of fossil fuel such as coal briquettes used in home cookstoves and automobile exhaust.
“To mitigate near-term climate effects and improve air quality in East Asia, activities such as residential coal combustion and city traffic should be targeted,” concluded the authors in their paper.
The article can be found at: Chen et al. (2013) Source Forensics Of Black Carbon Aerosols From China.
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Source: ACS; Photo: poeloq/Flickr/CC.
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