Black carbon | EPFL Graph Search

Chemically, black carbon (BC) is a component of fine particulate matter (PM ≤ 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter). Black carbon consists of pure carbon in several linked forms. It is formed through the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuel, and biomass, and is one of the main types of particle in both anthropogenic and naturally occurring soot. Black carbon causes human morbidity and premature mortality. Because of these human health impacts, many countries have worked to reduce their emissions, making it an easy pollutant to abate in anthropogenic sources. In climatology, black carbon is a climate forcing agent contributing to global warming. Black carbon warms the Earth by absorbing sunlight and heating the atmosphere and by reducing albedo when deposited on snow and ice (direct effects) and indirectly by interaction with clouds, with the total forcing of 1.1 W/m2. Black carbon stays in the atmosphere for only several days to weeks, whereas potent greenhouse gases have longer lifecycles, for example, carbon dioxide () has an atmospheric lifetime of more than 100 years. The IPCC and other climate researchers have posited that reducing black carbon is one of the easiest ways to slow down short term global warming. The term black carbon is also used in soil sciences and geology, referring either to deposited atmospheric black carbon or to directly incorporated black carbon from vegetation fires. Especially in the tropics, black carbon in soils significantly contributes to fertility as it is able to absorb important plant nutrients. Michael Faraday recognized that soot was composed of carbon and that it was produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing fuels. The term black carbon was coined by Serbian physicist Tihomir Novakov, referred to as "the godfather of black carbon studies" by James Hansen, in the 1970s. Smoke or soot was the first pollutant to be recognized as having significant environmental impact yet one of the last to be studied by the contemporary atmospheric research community.

Equivalent black carbon concentration measured with an aethalometer AE33 during the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition

Julia Schmale, Andrea Baccarini, Benjamin Jérémy Laurent Heutte

Equivalent black carbon (eBC) mass concentration was measured with a commercial aethalometer (model AE33, Magee Scientific, Berkeley, USA). Measurements were performed onboard of the Swedish icebreaker (I/B) Oden from August to September 2018 as part of th ...

EPFL Infoscience2024

Quantifying functional group compositions of household fuel-burning emissions

Satoshi Takahama, Amir Yazdani

Globally, billions of people burn fuels indoors for cooking and heating, which contributes to millions of chronic illnesses and premature deaths annually. Additionally, residential burning contributes significantly to black carbon emissions, which have the ...

Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh2024

Measurements of aerosol microphysical and chemical properties in the central Arctic atmosphere during MOSAiC

Julia Schmale, Ivo Fabio Beck, Benjamin Jérémy Laurent Heutte, Nora Bergner, Hélène Paule Angot, Lubna Dada

The Arctic environment is transforming rapidly due to climate change. Aerosols’ abundance and physicochemical characteristics play a crucial, yet uncertain, role in these changes due to their influence on the surface energy budget through direct interactio ...

2023