is higher than recent estimates that a doubling of CO
2
(g) will result in a 2C tempera-
ture rise, but the theory is still consistent. Arrhenius also theorized that reductions in
CO
2
(g) caused ice ages to occur. This theory was incorrect because changes in the
Earth’s orbit are responsible for the ice ages. The decrease in CO
2
(g) mixing ratios
during an ice age is an effect rather than a cause of temperature changes.
12.2.3. The Leading Causes of Global Warming
Since the time of Arrhenius, carbon dioxide has been considered the leading cause and
methane the second leading cause of global warming. Indeed, climate feedback studies
indicate that carbon dioxide does cause the most near-surface global warming. The
second leading cause of near-surface global warming may be particulate black carbon,
not methane (Jacobson, 2000, 2001b). Black carbon is emitted during coal, diesel fuel,
jet fuel, natural gas, kerosene, and biomass burning. Table 12.3 indicates that BC may
be responsible for 16 percent of near-surface global warming today. Carbon dioxide is
responsible for about 47 percent of such warming.
Although CO
2
(g) is the most abundant and important anthropogenically emitted
gas in terms of its effects on global warming, other gases are more efficient, molecule
for molecule, at absorbing thermal-IR radiation, and the enhanced emissions of such
gases is a cause for concern. A CH
4
(g) molecule is approximately twenty-five times
more efficient at absorbing radiation than is a CO
2
(g) molecule. N
2
O(g) and CFCl
3
(g)
molecules are 270 and 12,500 times more efficient at absorbing, respectively, than is a
CO
2
(g) molecule. Thus, controlling the emission of all greenhouse gases is important
if global warming is to be remedied (Hayhoe et al., 1999; Hansen et al., 2000).
12.2.4. Trends in Greenhouse Gases
Since the mid-1800s, the tropospheric mixing ratios of CO
2
(g), CH
4
(g), and N
2
O(g)
have increased by 30 percent, 143 percent, and 14 percent, respectively. These gases
are relatively well mixed in the lower atmosphere.
Black carbon concentrations have not been tracked so far back, but emission data
give an estimate of the change in BC atmospheric loading since prior to the Industrial
Revolution. Today, about half of BC originates from fossil fuels and half originates
from biomass burning. Since all fossil-fuel BC and 80 percent of biomass-burning BC
today are anthropogenic, 90 percent of total BC is anthropogenic. In 1850 (and pre-
sumably prior to that), biomass burning, predominantly from forest fires at the time,
was about half that today (Houghton et al., 1991). As such, before fossil-fuel combus-
tion, total BC emissions may have been about 25 percent of those today, and all such
emissions were natural.
Since the beginning of the nineteenth century fossil fuel emissions of BC have
risen. Rates of coal combustion, one major source of BC, increased globally from
10 to 1,000 to 5,000 million metric tons per year from 1800 to 1900 to 1990 (McNeill,
2000). Coal production in the United States alone increased between 1984 and 1999
by 25 percent, and refining (for end use and resale) of No. 2 diesel fuel and jet fuel
increased by 69 and 57 percent, respectively (EIA, 2000). Because BC is a particle
component much heavier than a gas molecule, BC atmospheric lifetimes are shorter
and its spatial distributions more variable than are those of greenhouse gases.
Figure 12.7 shows changes in the mixing ratios of CO
2
(g), CH
4
(g), and N
2
O(g)
from 1750, 1840, and 1988, respectively, to the present. The historical CO
2
(g) and
THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT AND GLOBAL WARMING 319