Introduction
Air pollution has long been a problem in the industrial nations of the West. It has now become an increasing source of environmental degradation in the developing nations of east Asia. China in particular, because of its rapid push to industrialize, is experiencing dramatic levels of aerosol pollution over a large portion of the country.

China has been experiencing increasingly severe dust storms, which are commonly believed to be caused by over farming, over grazing, and the destruction of forests. Plumes of dust from north China, mixed with toxic air pollution, is a major public health concern in China, Korea, and Japan. Some of these aerosols even reach the United States. Recent dust events have prompted Chinese officials to consider spending several hundred billion yuan ($12 billion) in the next decade to increase forests and green belts to combat the dust storms. Such measures may be beneficial in any case. However, recent research (Menon, et al. 2002) suggests that the observed trend toward increased summer floods in south China and drought in north China, thought to be the largest change in precipitation trends since 950 A.D., may have an alternative explanation: human-made absorbing aerosols, mainly black carbon soot, that alter the regional atmospheric circulation and contribute to regional climate change. If this interpretation is correct, reducing the amount of anthropogenic black carbon aerosols, in addition to having human health benefits, may help diminish the intensity of floods in the south and droughts and dust storms in the north. Similar considerations apply to India, which has recently experienced droughts. India’s air pollution, because it is also rich in black carbon, has reached the point where scientists fear it may have already altered the seasonal climate cycle of the monsoons....

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