BLACK CARBON (SOOT)
Another factor that reduces Arctic albedo is black carbon (soot) emissions from northern hemisphere air pollution. Dirty snow cover from carbon pollution is transported to the Arctic and dumped on the snow. Black carbon is an additional source of global warming from fossil fuel combustion, in additiOn to the direct atmospheric global warming effect of soot. \
Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system published Fed 2013, a very large scientific assessment confirmed that black carbon (soot) is second only to CO2 in causing global warming.
The research found the warming of black carbon is double what most climate models are using.
An AGU release says accounting for all of the ways black carbon can affect climate, it is believed to have a warming effect of about 1.1 Watts per square meter (W/m2), approximately two-thirds of the effect of the largest man made contributor to global warming – carbon dioxide.
2012 research supports previous findings that black carbon is second only to CO2 in causing global warming. This is almost all through a direct greenhouse heat absorption property with a small additional warming of reducing snow albedo,
Research by M. Jacobson in 2010 found that the overall global warming effect of black soot may be second only to CO2. Jacobson's calculations indicate that controlling soot could reduce warming above parts of the Arctic Circle by almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit within 15 years. That would virtually erase all of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last 100 years.
Scientists at UC Irvine in 2007 determined that dirty snow can account for one-third or more of the Arctic warming primarily attributed to greenhouse gases.
A 2008 paper by V Ramanathan Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon concluded that black carbon (BC) is second only to CO2 in causing global warming, and could be a very large cause of melting glaciers in the Himalayas.