The world needs Bert from Mary Poppins to ease up global warming

A bloody cold and foggy day it was today.  One of those days when the sun didn't even bother showing up to work--the sun called in sick because of the fog. When I returned home yesterday, it was close to seven in the evening and it was about 39 degrees.  Today, I returned home a good two hours before that--it was a couple of minutes past five--and it was only 33!

Global warming is a hoax, it seems like!

Scientists have apparently found something new about global warming.  And, no, it is not because of the fog here.  Turns out that good ol' soot is more a factor than was previously thought.  First it was a brief blurb at Slate:

New research shows that soot, AKA black carbon, is one of the top two contributors to climate change, greater than methane and second only to carbon dioxide. 

Bloody soot!

So, I had to read up more to get some details.
Ron Bailey's piece popped up in my RSS reader (RIP, Aaron Swartz.)  Bailey quotes a WaPo report on a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research:

The four-year, 232-page study of black carbon, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, shows that short-lived pollution known as soot, such as emissions from diesel engines and wood-fired stoves, has about two-thirds the climate impact of carbon dioxide. The analysis has pushed methane, which comes from landfills and other forces, into third place as a human contributor to global warming.

I bet the global cow population is relieved that their flatulence is not as significant factors then.

Then Bailey notes this:

I was somewhat bemused by this observation in the Post article:

Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego, identified black carbon in 2008 as the second-biggest human contributor to climate change. But many researchers questioned his analysis because it was based on observations rather than computer modeling.

Computer modeling trumps empirical observations? Really?
The next question is: What else might the computer climate models be overlooking?

Really? Scientists dismissed the empirical observations that Ramanathan based his conclusions on because he didn't use some mumbo-jumbo computer algorithms?  Boy does it seem like that old Groucho Marx line, "who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Now, Veerabhadran Ramanathan?  It has to be a fellow immigrant from my old country, Tamil Nadu?  His undergraduate degree in engineering is from Annamalai University.  Yay! A metaphorical stone throw away from Neyveli.  His accomplishments include:

His numerous awards include the 2009 Tyler prize, the Volvo Prize, the Zayed prize, the Rossby Medal and the Buys-Ballot Medal for pioneering studies in climate and environment. He has been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy by Pope John Paul II and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Yet, they dismissed his zeroing in on soot as an important contributor because he relied on empirical observations?  Way to go!

Maybe time for a carbon tax?  Dream on, eh!