Breakthrough in the Analysis of Aerosols Effects

The weather changes in our planet represent one of the largest environmental concerns that
we are facing today. In order to diminish the damage done by humankind to the atmosphere,
governments around the world have created institutions that measure and control the
emissions of pollution made by industries. The EPA, in the United Sates summarizes long
term trends in emissions of air pollutants and gives a deep analysis of the emissions for the
current year in the “National Air Pollutant Emissions Trend Report” (1). The criteria of
pollutants include CO, Pb, NO 2, O3, SO2, particle matter, and air toxics. (2) In Mexico the
SIMAT measures air pollution in a unit called IMECAS which takes in account O 3, SO2, NO2
CO and particles with a size lower than 10µm. (3)
Information provided by this kind of institutions gives a basis to legislators in order to improve
laws and therefore force industries to make changes to lower emissions. However there is a
lack of legislation about aerosols because their effects on the environment are
underestimated, which creates the common belief that small particles do not have a role in
global warming and as a result they are not taken into account on predictive models. The
problem is that scientists are still working on improving predictive models, reducing many of
the uncertainties related to climate change. (4) As a consequence current models are
incapable of correctly reproducing the observed trends, showing that temperatures are
increasing faster than they are in fact. (5)
In a 1987 paper, a researcher named Thomas Wigley noticed and published that something
other than CO2 had to be influencing temperature (5). This means that models have not
captured properly some fundamental physical components of earth’s climate; this flaw may
be related to cloudiness. (5) Clouds play a complex role in affecting our climate, keeping our
atmosphere cooler than usual by reflecting sunlight back into space. Nowadays pollution is
starting to play a key role and with more seeds from air pollution adding to the cloud mix,
droplets cannot grow big enough to induce rain. Because of this some areas of the world are
seeing clear evidence of drought. (4) This is what we call the indirect effect of aerosols as part
of atmospheric pollutants; this effect represents the single largest uncertainty in our
understanding of climate change; which leaves us scientists with a significant challenge in
order to unravel the relative impacts of pollution in size versus chemistry on cloud formation
with the lack of analytical techniques available. (4)
Aerosols represent the least studied components in air pollution, even though its potential
effect is second to CO2. The climate and negative health impacts of aerosols are strongly
dependent to particle size, chemical composition and mixing state. (4) One of the main
components of aerosols is soot, which has a direct effect by absorbing and scattering solar
radiation entering our atmosphere. (6) This is why aerosols are considered to have opposite
radiative effects to the green house gases.
It is widely believed that aerosols determine how rapidly or slowly warming will occur,
therefore, FTIR is starting to be used in order to measure the impact of tiny particles, like
soot, and develop reference spectra. (1) However the majority of in situ aerosol measurements
essential for validation global climate models have been made near the surface (7), as well as
CO2 and pollution information utilized in modeling; this provoques a mismatch between model
predictions for temperatures above the surface and actual observations of them. (5)
Getting the vertical temperature change is vital, because this distribution from the surface to
the stratosphere determines a lot of our weather, making vertical and horizontal profiles of
atmosphere necessary for determining the impact of air pollution on global climate.
The Prather Group research from the University Of California, San Diego developed a unique
instrument that allows increased understanding on particle mixing state as a function of
altitude and time called Aerosol time-of flight mass spectrometry (ATOFMS). (8) The results
provided by this technique lead to a major breakthrough on understanding aerosol particles,
because aerosols provide sites in the atmosphere where reactions take place. Driven by
chemical reactions soot becomes coated with a spherical shell of other chemicals as sulfate,
nitrate and organic carbon. This coating acts like a lens and focuses light into the center of
the particle enhancing warming. (7) Therefore sampling time is extremely important when it
comes to aerosols measuring. In order to obtain right measurements they have to be taken at
the moment of the emission or reaction. (8)
Prather Group discoveries changed the conception that increasing aerosol concentration
would counter effect global warming. Advantage is that aerosol’s (especially soot’s) life is
very short. Reducing CO2 concentrations and emissions is extremely important, nonetheless,
even if all the emissions were stopped today, the cleansing process would be very slow, we
are still dealing with CO2 emitted between 50 to 100 years ago. In contrast, changes we
make today on soot and sulfate particles could affect our planet on timescales of months (9),
buying us time.
One of the solutions proposed to this is sulfur insertion into the geosphere, but with geo-
engineering we cannot in fact test in a limited version to asses risk before going to scale, with
a potential of 2 billion people that could have their food disrupted by such interventions. (9)
Global warming science is far from being settled, before messing more with Mother Nature,
we must understand the whole panorama in order to improve the models and make them
accurate. Until then we cannot start making the right predictions or decisions, because the
current models cannot handle the true impact of our actions. In order to keep publishing and
providing the public the answers they are demanding from us, we use wrong models and
make wrong predictions which lead us astray from any realistic answer.
We have to start making changes, and starting to take aerosol mixing state into the equation
is fundamental to propose solutions, because our time is running out and we must begin
making the appropriate changes now.
Works Cited
1. U.S Environmental Protection Agency. [En línea] [Citado el: 17 de Marzo de 2010.]
www.epa.gov/ttn/emc/monitor.html.
2. Air Pollution Emissions Overview. [En línea] [Citado el: 17 de Marzo de 2010.] www.epa.gov/air/oaqps/emissions.html.
3. Sistema de Monitoreo Atmosférico de la Ciudad de México. [En línea] [Citado el: 17 de Marzo de 2010.]
www.sma.df.gob.mx/simat.
4. Our Current Understanding of the Impact of Aerosols on Climate Change. Prather, Kimberly A. 2009, 2, ChemSusChem,
págs. 377-379.
5. Michaels, Patrick J y Bolling Jr., Robert C. Climate Of Extremes. Washington : CATO Institute, 2009.
6. Role of Aerosols in Climate Change. Charlson, Robert J y Penner, Joyce E. 1996. USGCRP Seminar.
7. In-situ measurements of the mixing state and optical properties of soot with implications for radiative forcing estimates.
Prather, Kimberly A. 2009, 106, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, págs. 11872-11877.
8. Development and Characterization of an Aircraft Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer. Prather, Kimberly A. 2009,
81, Anal. Chem., págs. 1792-1800.
9. Bunzl, Martin, Prather, Kimberly y Alleny, Braden. Engineering climate plus effects of soot on climate and our bodies.
[entrev.] Robyn Williams. The Science Show. 27 de Febrero de 2010.