US shifts focus from CO2 to black carbon and climate. Communist China and India biggest contributors to Arctic black carbon-Hansen & Koch

Arctic black carbon comes mainly from Communist China and India, not Norway or the US, per James Hansen and Dorothy Koch:

6/2/12, "Remarks by Secretary of State Clinton With Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere," ENews Park Forest

Tromso, Norway, Sec. Clinton: "I’m highlighting a new partnership that I started called the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and we’re very pleased that Norway is a member. And it is to focus on what are called short-lived climate pollutants – methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons – which make up at least 30 – somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions.* And they are actually released into the atmosphere during the extraction and production of oil and natural gas, among other activities....And we just heard the impact of burning (inaudible) fuels and putting all that black carbon and soot into the air. It then lands on the ice and you know rest.

So I want to thank Norway for joining the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and making an initial commitment of one and a half million dollars, and also a pledge by Norway of one million dollars specifically to target black carbon across the Arctic. I’m very grateful that we had a chance to meet with the head of Statoil and representative of new Norwegianers and ExxonMobil to talk about ways that oil and gas companies are already reducing methane and black carbon emissions from their own production....That would make a significant impact on climate change without hurting any oil or gas company’s bottom line, and it’s exactly the kind of private and public cooperation we need to pursue and that this new coalition is determined to try to bring about."...

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*Black carbon isn't a 'greenhouse gas' per scientist:

5/16/12, "Recent Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion primarily driven by black carbon and tropospheric ozone," Nature, Robert J. Allen, et al.

"Heterogeneous warming agents—including black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone—are noticeably better than greenhouse gases at driving expansion....Thus, although the insensitivity of models needs further investigation, black carbon and tropospheric ozone, both of which are strongly influenced by human activities, are the most likely causes of observed Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion."

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Per James Hansen and Dorothy Koch, Arctic black carbon comes mainly from Communist China and India:

Between 1980 and 1995, "BC (black carbon) emissions from developed countries have declined and aircraft are apparently not to blame. However, during this time BC emissions from China and India have nearly doubled:"

2/25/2005, "Distant origins of Arctic black carbon: A Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE experiment," Dorothy Koch and James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Journal of Geophysical Research

p.1 "Black carbon (BC) particles, derived from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, may have a severe impact on the sensitive Arctic climate, possibly altering the temperature profile, cloud temperature and amount, the seasonal cycle, and the tropopause level and accelerating polar ice melting. We use the Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model to investigate the origins of Arctic BC by isolating various source regions and types. The model suggests that the predominant sources of Arctic soot today are from south Asia (industrial and biofuel emissions) and from biomass burning.

These are the primary global sources of BC (approximately 20% and 55%, respectively, of the global emissions), and BC aerosols in these regions are readily lofted to high altitudes where they may be transported poleward. According to the model the Arctic BC optical thickness is mostly from south Asia (30%) and from biomass (28%) (with slightly more than half of biomass coming from north of 40 N)."...

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5/21/12, "G8: Leaders open up vital new front in the battle to control global warming," UK Telegraph, Geoffrey Lean

"It seems to have gone virtually unnoticed, but the world leaders at the weekend's G8 summit look as if they have taken the biggest step in years in tackling climate change. And it's quite apart from anything to do with carbon dioxide."...

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5/18/12, "CO2 Not to Blame for Southwest Droughts?" World Climate Report

"Now comes along a new paper published in Nature magazine by Robert Allen and colleagues which suggests that the drying trend which remains is being caused more by black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone than by greenhouse gas emissions. ...

"According to Allen et al.:

“Our analysis strongly suggests that recent Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion is driven mainly by black carbon and tropospheric ozone, with greenhouse gases playing a smaller part.”...

The authors argue that there is a good likelihood that black carbon emissions have been underestimated—especially those arising from Southeast Asia....

The bottom line is that the primary influences on a major component of the earth’s atmospheric circulation and thus general weather patterns turns out to be, on further examination, not atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration changes, but rather black carbon (soot) and tropospheric ozone. And one impact from the forced atmospheric circulation changes is a tendency for more aridity across the Southwestern U.S.

So, the EPA can try all they want to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but no matter how successful they are, they will have little impact, if any, on the future of drought in the Southwestern U.S., as drought there is a complex interaction between natural variability and human climate alterations—of which, as shown by Allen et al., greenhouse gases play only a minor role.

So much for the “robust” signal that human greenhouse gases will lead to more drought in the Southwest."...





via Tom Nelson