Benefits of cleaner vehicles
04.05.11 By Adam Voiland NASA's Earth Science News Team A new analysis, published this week and conducted by a team of scientists led by Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, shows stricter vehicle emission standards would yield major health, agricultural, and climate benefits. Shindell and colleagues used a comprehensive computer model and climate simulator — one of the first capable of accounting for the role of short-lived particles expelled in vehicle fumes called aerosols — that shows vehicle fumes exact an enormous toll in all countries and especially in the developing world. The scientists used modeling techniques developed at GISS to compare a baseline scenario that assumes existing emission standards remain unchanged in coming decades with a second scenario that has most countries adopting stringent standards similar to those in place in Europe and North America. Vehicles in those two regions produce less particulate matte...