Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming

The polluting effects of cooking using biomass like wood or cow dung in south Asia are illustrated through a measurement of aerosol optical depth, a way of measuring the quantity of pollutants in the air by the relative ability of light to penetrate through them. This representation shows reconstructed levels of pollution from 2004 and 2005. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego