EAGER: Project Surya - Mitigation of Global and Regional Climate Change

Surya项目是一项科学实验，旨在量化由生物质燃料烹饪和加热火焰产生的黑碳（BC）造成的辐射强迫。大约有25亿人依靠燃烧生物质做饭和取暖，占全球碳排放的25%左右。据估计，BC对太阳辐射的吸收为全球变暖贡献了20%至55%的二氧化碳。该研究将包括对印度北部人口稠密的印度河-恒河平原（IGP）地区350个农村家庭减少二氧化碳排放的努力结果的详细分析。通过将燃烧效率较低的传统乡村炉灶替换为效率较高的现代炉灶，可以实现减排。这项为期一年的研究的基本目标是收集和分析观测数据，以检验向“清洁”烹饪的转变对辐射强迫的影响是否可辨别，以及净结果是变暖还是变冷。如果反射气溶胶的减少大于吸收气溶胶的减少，则净辐射强迫的变化将变暖，反之亦然。假设是净减少将导致冷却。这将在这个概念验证研究中进行测试。首席研究员（PI）估计，减少吸收气溶胶与反射气溶胶的比例明显大于1，这意味着大规模转向清洁烹饪将对二氧化碳强迫变暖产生显著的负反馈（冷却）。他的估计必须用观察来检验。这项EAGER奖励将使该测试成为可能。如果他是对的，科学和应用将是变革性的。由于几个原因，该项目存在风险，其中包括比率测量的稳健性，将信息扩展到印度更大、更异构的地区的困难，以及为在印度村庄等环境中工作而开发的新IT数据收集技术。如果成功，其回报可能是全球性的。更广泛的影响：“苏里亚”项目可以迅速减少使气候变暖的气溶胶和气体。由于室内污染每年造成100多万人死亡，减少煤烟排放的全球行动可能会对公共卫生和气候产生重大而直接的好处。

Project Surya is a scientific experiment aimed at quantifying the radiative forcing due to black carbon (BC) from biomass-fueled cooking and heating fires. Roughly 2.5 billion people depend on biomass burning for cooking and heating which contributes about 25% of the global BC emissions. Absorption of solar radiation by BC is estimated to contribute as much as 20% to 55% of the CO2 to global warming. The study will encompass a detailed analysis of the results of efforts to reduce BC emissions from 350 rural households in the densely populated Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) region of Northern India. The reductions would be achieved by replacing traditional village cooking stoves with poor combustion efficiencies to modern stoves with higher efficiencies. The fundamental goal of the year-long study will be to collect and analyze observational data to test whether the effects of conversion to "clean" cooking on radiative forcing are discernable, and whether the net result warms or cools. The change in net radiative forcing will warm if the reduction in reflecting aerosol is greater than the reduction in absorbing aerosol, and vise versa. The hypothesis is that the net reduction will result in cooling. This is what will be tested in this proof-of-concept study. The principal investigator (PI) estimates a ratio significantly greater than one, of reduced absorbing aerosol to reflecting aerosol, which means that a massive conversion to clean cooking would have a significant negative feedback (cooling) to CO2-forced warming. His estimate must be tested with observations. This EAGER award will enable that test. If he is right, the science and applications will be transformative. The project is risky for several reasons, among them are the robustness of the measurement of the ratio, the difficulties of upscaling information to much larger, more heterogeneous regions in India, and the new IT data collection techniques developed for working in an environment like an Indian village. If successful, the payoff could be globally significant.Broader Impact: Project Surya could lead to the rapid reduction of warming aerosol and gases. With indoor pollution killing over a million people a year, global action to cut soot emissions could be of major and immediate benefit for both public health and the climate.