CL
Climate: Past, Present & Future

Jason Blake Cohen

Jason Blake Cohen is a Professor at the School of Environment and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, and a recipient of China's National Youth Thousand Talents Program. He holds a Sc.D. from MIT in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and has previously held positions at the National University of Singapore and Sun Yat-Sen University. His research focuses on the global and urban-scale impacts of anthropogenic aerosols and trace gases, with particular expertise in black carbon loading, microphysical properties, and radiative forcing, as well as satellite-based inversion methods for short-lived climate forcers. He serves as an Editor for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and is the Founding Director of AERSS.

Why the Same Soot Can Warm One City and Cool Another

and July 20, 2026
Why the Same Soot Can Warm One City and Cool Another
Graphical abstract of the study. Authors' courtesy

Every time something burns incompletely —whether in a car engine, a factory furnace, a cooking fire, an agricultural field set alight after harvest, or a vast wildfire sweeping through savanna grasslands— tiny particles of black carbon are released into the atmosphere. You might know these more simply as soot. These particles are so small that thousands of them laid side by side would barely stret ...[Read More]