Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Flickr

While carbon dioxide remains the worst perpetrator of global warming over the long term, reducing methane and black carbon (soot) would have a more immediate effect on both climate change and health, and measures to curb these emissions could be more quickly implemented, according to a new study from NASA researchers.

With the help of computer models, the research team at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies found that by shifting focus to reducing methane and black carbon, global warming could be slowed by almost one degree Fahrenheit by 2050. It may not sound like much, but these same measures could prevent as many as 700,000 to 4.7 million premature deaths every year, especially in south Asia, while also increasing the world’s crops by 135 million metric tons each season, say the researchers.

In order to achieve this, the team has proposed 14 changes, which include major infrastructure changes like capturing and containing the methane gas released during coal mining, upgrading water treatment plants and banning agricultural burning, to simpler tasks like upgrading cook stoves and boilers and installing filters in diesel vehicles.

Tags: climate change, nasa climate change, nasa methane study

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