For those who follow [pun intended] the world of climate science on Twitter, you’ll very likely have noticed a string of tweets from a meeting at the Royal Society on the “Next steps in climate science“. The programme (PDF here) has included a wide range of topics relating to climate science and has included a number of scientists who heavily contributed to the recent IPCC Workin ...[Read More]
Biomass burning birthday
Last September I spent a month in Brazil for a research project aiming to study the pollution produced by deforestation fires in the Amazon Basin. The fires are mainly started by people for agricultural needs or land clearing for buildings and infrastructure. These fires produce huge amounts of smoke that blanket vast regions of South America during the “dry” season, which can lead to ...[Read More]
Sweeping soot out of the atmosphere
Efforts to slow the rate of global temperature rise in the 21st Century have for some time focussed on non-CO2 species or so-called ‘short-lived forcers’. As far as aerosols are concerned, black carbon (often referred to as soot) has been the main avenue to explore due to its capacity to warm the atmosphere by absorbing sunlight. Black carbon contrasts with most other aerosol species w ...[Read More]