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FROTH AND BUBBLE
Home cooking fires, traffic tagged as pollution sources in China
by Staff Writers
Beijing (UPI) Aug 21, 2013


disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

Home cooking fires and city traffic emissions create 80 percent of the air pollution in China that spreads over large areas of East Asia, researchers say.

Home cooking with coal briquettes and byproducts of fossil-fuel combustion in vehicles is impacting human health and fostering global warming, a study reported in the journal Environmental Science & Technology concludes.

Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University and colleagues from China, South Korea and the United States note in their study the exact sources of soot, or "black carbon," air pollution in the People's Republic of China has up to now been uncertain.

A powerful carbon-14 identification method was used to trace fully four-fifths of the black carbon emitted in China to incomplete combustion of fossil fuel such as coal briquettes used in home cook stoves and automobile and truck exhaust, they reported.

Tiny particles of black soot can be inhaled deep into the lungs, and estimates implicate soot with 500,000 premature deaths annually in China alone, the said.

Black carbon in the atmosphere also absorbs sunlight, and many scientists say they believe soot is second only to carbon dioxide as a factor in global warming.

"To mitigate near-term climate effects and improve air quality in East Asia, activities such as residential coal combustion and city traffic should be targeted," the researchers wrote.

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Related Links
Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up






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FROTH AND BUBBLE
NASA Scientists Relate Urban Population to Air Pollution
Greenbelt MD (NASA) Aug 22, 2013
Live in a large city like New York, London, Beijing or Mumbai, and you are likely exposed to more air pollution than people in smaller cities in surrounding areas. But exactly how a city's pollution relates to the size of its population has never been measured, until now. Using satellite observations, NASA scientists directly measured air pollution's dependence on population in four of the ... read more


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