Research: Much of South Asia Soot Is from Biomass Combustion
A gigantic brownish haze from various burning and combustion processes is blanketing India and surrounding land and oceans during the winter season. This soot-laden Brown Cloud is affecting South Asian climate as much or more than carbon dioxide and cause premature deaths of 100 000s annually, yet its sources have been poorly understood, according to a Jan. 25 press release.
In a recent issue of Science Örjan Gustafsson and colleagues at Stockholm University and in India use a novel carbon-14 method to constrain that two-thirds of the soot particles are from biomass combustion such as in household cooking and in slash-and-burn agriculture.
Brown Clouds, covering large parts of South and East Asia, originate from burning of wood, dung, and crop residue as well as from industrial processes and traffic. Previous studies had left it unclear as to the relative source contributions of biomass versus fossil fuel combustion.
Combustion-derived soot particles are key components of the Brown Cloud in Asia. The soot absorbs sunlight and thereby heats the atmosphere while cooling Earth's surface by shading.
The net effect of soot on climate warming in South Asia is rivaling that of carbon dioxide.
The Swedish-Indian team managed to address the uncertainty of the soot sources by the first-ever microscale measurements of natural C-14 (half-life of 5700 years) of atmospheric soot particles intercepted on a mountain top in western India and outside southwestern India on the Hanimaadhoo island of the Maldives. Their results demonstrated that the brown cloud soot was persistently about two-thirds from burning of contemporary biomass (C-14 "alive") and one-third from fossil fuel combustion (C-14 "dead").
These findings provide a direction for actions to curb emissions of Brown Clouds. Örjan
Gustafsson, a professor of biogeochemistry at Stockholm University and leader of the study, says that the clear message is that efforts should not be limited to car traffic and coal-fired power plants but calls on fighting poverty and spreading India-appropriate green technology to limit emissions from small-scale biomass burning. "More households in South Asia need to be given the possibility to cook food and get heating without using open fires of wood and dung" says Gustafsson.