soot – sunshine hours

I’m still working my way through this but:

“The role of dust in terminations of Ice Ages is probably far more important than many realize. It appears likely that unusually high dust levels coupled to sharply rising solar intensity at high latitudes was a major factor in initiating termination of Ice Ages. As Palmer put it, layers of buried dust probably sustained the evolution of the interglacial period.”

Dust deposition on ice sheets: a mechanism for termination of ice ages?

And if that is true, what about the dust at the end of the 1920s leading to the big temperature increase in the 1930s. Or the soot from the massive expansion of coal burning power plants and diesel cars/trucks?

Oh no … what a surprise …

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering looked at the emissions from gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines, which are smaller and more efficient than traditional petrol engines.

Car manufacturers have adopted GDI engines in models to satisfy demand for more miles per gallon, and increased power output. According to the team, the number of GDI engines found in new cars between 2009 and 2015 has jumped to from five per cent to 46 per cent.

But their analysis revealed while carbon dioxide emissions were lower in GDI engines, they pumped out more soot and harmful organic compounds such as benzene and toluene.

‘The whole motivation for creating these engines in the first place was fuel efficiency. But what we haven’t considered are the other climate-related emissions,’ explained Professor Greg Evans, an engineer and applied chemist at Toronto.

‘If a vehicle emits a small amount of soot, it can completely negate the lower amount of CO2 that it’s emitting.‘

Tag: soot

Dust on Ice Sheets = End of Glaciation

Fuel Efficient GDI Engines Are Dirtier