Radiative impact of carbonaceous aerosols

Carbonaceous aerosols are produced by the combustion of fossil and vegetation fuels. They contain both organic and black carbon particles whose global abundance is comparable to anthropogenic sulfates. These particles may have a climatic impact: organic particles representing the most important fraction could cool the atmosphere whereas a warming could be due to black carbon (Penner et al., 1992, Haywood and Shine, 1995).