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Nature 448, 541-542 (2 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/448541a; Published online 1 August 2007

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Climate change: Aerosols heat up

Peter Pilewskie1

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Solid particles suspended in the atmosphere have long played second fiddle to greenhouse gases as agents of climate change. A study of atmospheric heating over the Indian Ocean could provoke a rethink.

In the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released earlier this year, the effect on climate of aerosols — small, suspended particles of varying composition, size and shape — since the start of the industrial era was estimated to be about 20% of that of greenhouse gases1. Aerosols are thought to have a cooling effect on the atmosphere, and therefore to have mitigated some of the expected global warming over this period.

  1. Peter Pilewskie is at the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0590, USA.
    Email: peter.pilewskie@colorado.edu

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