President Barack Obama has seemingly spent a lot of his second term trying to cement his reputation as one of the United States’s most environmentally conscious leaders.
Black carbon is the second largest contributor to human-induced climate warming, after carbon dioxide. International shipping is a major source of diesel black carbon emissions and not yet subject to international regulation.
Arctic sea ice this year is the smallest in winter since satellite records began in 1979, in a new sign of long-term climate change, US data showed on Thursday.
Presentation by Marianne T. Lund of Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo (CICERO) at Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2015: Poor in climate change, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, March 11 – 12, 2015.
As the climate warms, the carbon balance of arctic ecosystems will respond in two opposing ways: Plants will grow faster, leading to a carbon sink, while thawing permafrost will lead to decomposition and loss of soil carbon. However, thawing permafrost also releases nitrogen that fertilizes plant growth, offsetting some carbon losses. The balance of these processes determines whether these ecosystems will act as a stabilizing or destabilizing feedback to climate change.
The Arctic has warmed significantly more than global mean surface air temperature over recent decades, as expected from amplification mechanisms. Previous studies have attributed the observed Arctic warming to the combined effect of greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic influences. However, given the sensitivity of the Arctic to external forcing and the intense interest in the effects of aerosols on its climate, it is important to examine and quantify the effects of individual groups of anthropogenic forcing agents.
Marine vessels are a large source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions, including CO2, NOX, SOX, particulate matter and black carbon, which impact local air quality, human health, and the global climate.
