AS IF we didn’t have enough to worry about with greenhouse gases messing up the climate, there’s a new potential spanner in the atmospheric works.
Tar balls form in the smoke from burning plants and are made mainly of carbon, but are up to 10 times the diameter of soot particles. No one knows what effect the newly discovered particles have on the environment or human health. They might contribute to global warming by absorbing sunlight in the atmosphere, but whether this is effect is significant compared with conventional soot is unclear. “It would be premature to speculate,” says Peter…
