HEE! HEE!

"The major source of potentially climate-changing soot in the air over south Asia is home cooking fires, according to a team of Indian and American researchers. The burning of wood, agricultural waste and animal manure for cooking is the largest source of black carbon in the air in that region, according to the team led by C. Venkataraman of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. "We therefore suggest that the control of these emissions through cleaner cooking technologies, in addition to reducing health risks to several hundred million users, could be of crucial importance to climate change mitigation in south Asia," the researchers wrote in a paper appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The effect of soot in the air over the Indian Ocean is some 10 times that of the so-called greenhouse gases, according to the researchers. The pollution causes the air to absorb more sunlight, warming the atmosphere and cooling the surface beneath. Such changes can affect rainfall patterns, contributing to intensity of floods and droughts, the group said in their paper. Worldwide, most atmospheric scientists are concerned that increasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, from industrial processes are trapping heat increasing the planet's overall temperature in ways that could lead to climate change.

The researchers conducted tests, burning various fuels used in home cooking in India to determine the type of soot produced, and measured soot in the air. They calculated that, of the black soot in the atmosphere, 42 percent originates from cooking fires, 25 percent from burning fossil fuels and 13 percent from open burning such as forest fires."

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EVEN THE SWEDES ARE GETTING IT

A report from the Swedish Research Council

"A new study of climate in the Northern Hemisphere for the past 2000 years shows that natural climate change may be larger than generally thought. This is displayed in results from scientists at the Stockholm University, made in cooperation with Russian scientists, which are published in Nature on 10 Feb 2005.

The most widespread picture of climate variability in the last millennium suggests that only small changes occurred before the year 1900, and then a pronounced warming set in. The new results rather show an appreciable temperature swing between the 12th and 20th centuries, with a notable cold period around AD 1600. A large part of the 20th century had approximately the same temperature as the 11th and 12th centuries. Only the last 15 years appear to be warmer than any previous period of similar length.

This study builds on an analysis of indirect climate data, such as information from ocean and lake bottoms, ice sheets, caves and annual tree rings. The use of this kind of material to reconstruct climate far back in the past is nothing new in itself. The difference between the new study from previous ones, is the selection of data series and the method used to estimate temperatures from them.

A 1000-year long climate simulation, undertaken (by another research group) with a computer model for the physics of the atmosphere and the oceans, show large similarities with the new reconstruction. The climate in this model is governed by reconstructed variations of solar radiation and the amount of volcanic dust in the atmosphere (which reflects sun-light back into space). The fact that these two climate evolutions, which have been obtained completely independently of each other, are very similar supports the case that climate shows an appreciable natural variability - and that changes in the sun's output and volcanic eruptions on the earth may be the cause.

This means that it is difficult to distinguish the human influence on climate from natural variability, even though the past 15 warm years are best explained if one includes human influence in the simulations. The new study underscores the importance of including natural climate variability in future scenarios. It is not only the humans that can cause appreciable climate changes - nature does it all the time by itself".

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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