Source Emissions Monitoring
Aerosol Black Carbon emissions come through the combustion of any fossil fuel. The main contributors to atmospheric BC are diesel and wood smoke combustion; other sources include coal combustion and waste incineration. Recent scientific studies have concluded that Atmospheric Black Carbon is the second leading cause of global warming. Aerosol Black Carbon has short lifetime in the atmosphere (a few weeks), which means that lowering emissions of BC would have immediate positive impacts on global warming. Additionally, BC emission control technologies are readily available.
Each combustion source is different in terms of combustion efficiency and emissions. Measuring the actual emissions at each source provides information necessary to characterize the source inventories and impacts of emissions controls.
