Korean scientists and US scientists are having a heated dispute on the effects that aerosol containing numerous black carbon(main component is black carbon like coal) particles has on  unusual climate phenomena, in the world renowned science journal ‘Nature’. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7416/full/nature11471.html)

   The dispute started from a thesis that a research team of professor Chung Chul (School of Environmental Science and Engineering) of GIST (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, President Kim Young-Joon) and professor Amato T. Evan of Virginia University, USA, posted on Nature last November.

   At that time, research team of professor Chung and professor Evan posted a thesis on Nature which stated ‘the increase of black carbon and other particles discharged from India aggravated the intensity of cyclones occurring in the Arabian coast’. The team had studied the intensity of cyclones which had occurred in this region during the past 30 years, and found out that the intensity of cyclones had increased at most 3 times in 30 years. The team explained that the reason is because “large amounts of black carbon discharged from India blocks sunlight, lowering the sea temperature of the North Indian Ocean”. That is, the increase of temperature difference between the North Indian Ocean and Equatorial Indian Ocean reduced the wind direction difference between the upper layer and lower layer of the Arabian Sea, thereby causing powerful cyclones.

   This thesis received much interest from climatologists, leading to fierce disputes on Nature.