Well...who would of thought it? NASA Goddard finally does useful science.
Seems that Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. knows more than some AGW religious fanatics give him credit. Dr Pielke Sr has always held the opinion that other forcings were more responsible than Greenhouse Gases.
A new study from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD shows that Soot (also known as Black Carbon) is more responsible for warming temperatures in the Himalayas than Carbon Dioxide. Turns out that the melting in the Himalayan mountains may be caused by man after all, but instead of continually blaming it on Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) it seems that black carbon soot is the real culprit. As the article states, soot is produced "When fossil fuels are burned without enough oxygen to complete combustion, one of the byproducts is black carbon, an aerosol that absorbs solar radiation..." This black carbon comes from poorly developed regions in Asia with large populations of people, like China, India, etc. And, guess what...It's relatively easy to remedy, and could have much quicker results to the climate. More study of this has been proposed and should be done. Let's hope that the misguided religious fanatics don't start hooking their CO2 hooks into this. Let's hope some real science comes of this.
Maybe ClimateGate wasn't such a bad thing after all...Amen to that!
See the article from NASA - http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-warming.html
or, see Dr Pielke Sr's take on it - http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/news-release-on-soot-effects-on-climate-in-the-himalayas-its-larger-than-the-forcing-from-the-human-input-of-co2/
Oh and by the way, Himalayan warming is not global warming...The key word being "global". =)
"Don't buy the hype, think for yourself!"
Peace
G
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