Black Carbon Contributes to Droughts and Floods in China

A new NASA climate study has found large amounts of black carbon (soot) particles and other pollutants are causing changes in precipitation and temperatures over China and may be at least partially responsible for the tendency toward increased floods and droughts in those regions over the last several decades.

In a paper appearing in the September 27 issue of SCIENCE, Surabi Menon of NASA and Columbia University, New York, and her colleague, James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies indicate black carbon can affect regional climate by absorbing sunlight, heating the air and thereby altering large-scale atmospheric circulation and the hydrologic cycle.

Using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies climate computer model and aerosol data from 46 ground stations in China, Menon and Hansen conducted four sets of computer simulations to monitor the effects of black carbon on the hydrologic cycle over China and India. The aerosol data from the Chinese ground stations were provided by Yunfeng Luo, a co-author on the study from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

For more on the black carbon contributing to precipitation and temperature changes in China, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020822blackcarbon.html