Sara Pratt in Geotimes:
High concentrations of soot, or black carbon, fill the skies over South Asia. In the past, scientists have thought that most of the soot comes from burning fossil fuels for transportation and industrial use. A new study, however, says that residential cooking — with stoves that burn wood, crop waste and dried animal manure — is actually the largest source of soot emissions in India. Understanding this pollution source could have an important role in bettering both air quality and climate models…
…Chandra Venkataraman of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, along with colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, report in the March 4 Science that “biofuel combustion is the largest source of black carbon emissions in India” and that it should be “addressed as a distinct source.” They found that biofuels account for 42 percent of black carbon emissions over India each year, while the burning of fossil fuels produces 25 percent and forest fires produce 33 percent…
More here.