Date:14/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/14/stories/2008111450190100.htm

Front Page

Brown clouds making Delhi, Beijing ‘darker’: U.N.

BEIJING: Brown clouds of pollution are hanging over Asia, making “cities from Beijing to New Delhi” darker, melting glaciers in mountain ranges like the Himalayas faster and turning weather systems more extreme, the U.N. said on Thursday.

Formed as a result of burning of fossil fuels and biomass, the atmospheric brown clouds, made of soot and other manmade particles, are more than three km thick, said a new report by the U.N. Environment Programme .

The layer that stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China and the western Pacific Ocean is, in some cases and regions, aggravating the impact of greenhouse gas-induced climate change.– PTI