title: Can reducing black carbon emissions counteract global warming?
abstract: Field measurements and model results have recently shown that aerosols may have important climatic impacts. One line of inquiry has investigated whether reducing climate-warming soot or black carbon aerosol emissions can form a viable component of mitigating global warming. We review and acknowledge scientific arguments against considering aerosols and greenhouse gases in a common framework, including the differences in the physical mechanisms of climate change and relevant time scales. We argue that such a joint consideration is consistent with the language of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We synthesize results from published climate-modeling studies to obtain a global warming potential for black carbon relative to that of CO2 (680 on a 100 year basis). This calculation enables a discussion of cost-effectiveness for mitigating the largest sources of black carbon. We find that many emission reductions are either expensive or difficult to enact when compared with greenhouse gases, particularly in Annex I countries. Finally, we propose a role for black carbon in climate mitigation strategies that is consistent with the apparently conflicting arguments raised during our discussion. Addressing these emissions is a promising way to reduce climatic interference primarily for nations that have not yet agreed to address greenhouse gas emissions and provides the potential for a parallel climate agreement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. yark@uiuc.edu
authors.forename: Tami C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Bond
authors.forename: Haolin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002244:Carbon; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004777:Environment; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011050:Policy Making; D014480:United Nations
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon