Mar. 6. — Scientists believe that not only is India polluting its own air by cooking food over burning coal, it is also badly affecting that surrounding the entire south Asian region by using this stone-age method. The major source of soot (semi-burnt coal residue), which has the potential to change the climate, in the air over south Asia is home cooking fires, according to a team of Indian and American researchers.
Other than coal, the burning of wood, agricultural waste and animal manure for cooking are the largest sources of black carbon in the air in the region, according to the team led by C Venkataraman of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.
“We therefore suggest that the control of these emissions through cleaner cooking technologies, in addition to reducing health risks to several hundred million users, could be of crucial importance to climate change mitigation in south Asia,” the researchers wrote in a paper appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. IIT, Delhi has confirmed this finding of their Mumbai peers.
According to researchers, the effect of soot in the air over the Indian Ocean is 10 times that of the so-called greenhouse gases. Pollution makes the air absorb more sunlight, thereby warming the atmosphere and cooling the surface beneath. Such changes can affect rainfall patterns, contributing to intensity of floods and droughts. Worldwide, most atmospheric scientists are concerned that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are trapping heat increasing the planet’s overall temperature in ways that could lead to adverse climate change.
The researchers have conducted tests, burning various fuels used in home cooking in India to determine the type of soot produced, and have measured soot in the air. They calculated that of the black soot in the atmosphere, 42 per cent originates from cooking fires, 25 per cent from burning fossil fuels and 13 per cent from open burning such as forest fires.
Scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, also participated in the research. The work was funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation; Center for Clouds, Chemistry and Science, University of California, San Diego; US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; and US Environmental Protection Agency.
