Smoke belching from Asia's rapidly growing economies is largely responsible for a halt in global warming in the decade after 1998 because of sulfur's cooling effect, even though greenhouse gas emissions soared, a U.S. study said.
The paper raised the prospect of more rapid, pent-up climate change when emerging economies eventually crack down on pollution.
A U.N. plan to upgrade "space weather" forecasts can help the world cope with solar storms that might wreak up to $2 trillion in damage if the sun repeated a giant flare of 1859, experts said.
The sun is entering a more active phase due to peak in 2013 on a roughly 11-year sunspot cycle, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.
