Natural aerosols, such as emissions from volcanoes or plants, may contribute more uncertainty than previously thought to estimates of how the climate might respond to greenhouse gas emissions.

The specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), announced that it has classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1).

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When Rajan Chakrabarty, Ph.D., an assistant research professor at the Desert Research Institute, began looking into the regional inventories of human-produced sources of carbon aerosol pollution in South Asia, considered to be a climate change hot spot, he knew something was missing.

The aerosolized dust created by vacuums contain bacteria and mold that "could lead to adverse effects in allergic people, infants, and people with compromised immunity," according to researchers at the University of Queensland and Laval University. Their findings are published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

 A new study shows that exposure to diesel exhaust particles from traffic pollution leads to increased asthma severity in children. Moreover, the study finds that this is due to increased blood levels of IL-17A, a protein associated with several chronic inflammatory diseases, in children with high diesel exposure.

Asthma sufferers frequently exposed to heavy traffic pollution or smoke from wood fire heaters, experienced a significant worsening of symptoms, a new University of Melbourne led study has found.

Almost 80 percent of air pollution involving soot that spreads from China over large areas of East Asia — impacting human health and fostering global warming — comes from city traffic and other forms of fossil-fuel combustion, such as home cooking with coal briquettes.

 Increased concentrations of ozone and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) since preindustrial times reflect increased emissions, but also contributions of past climate change.

As demand climbs for more fuel-efficient vehicles, knowledge compiled over several years about diesel engines and a new strategy known as "low-temperature combustion" (LTC) might soon lead auto manufacturers and consumers to broader use of cleaner diesel engines in the United States.

 Cutting the amount of short-lived, climate-warming emissions such as soot and methane in our skies won't limit global warming as much as previous studies have suggested, a new analysis shows. The study also found a comprehensive climate policy would produce more climate benefits by 2050 than if soot and methane were reduced alone.