Tiny Particles Lead to Brighter Clouds in the Tropics

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Williamson and her colleagues, from CIRES, CU Boulder, NOAA and other institutions, including CIRES scientist Jose Jimenez, took global measurements of aerosol particles as part of the NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission, or ATom. During ATom, a fully instrumented NASA DC-8 aircraft flew four pole-to-pole deployments -- each one consisting of many flights over a 26-day period -- over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in every season. The plane flew from near sea level to an altitude of about 12 km, continuously measuring greenhouse gases, other trace gases and aerosols.

"ATom is a flying chemistry lab," Williamson said. "Our instruments allowed us to characterize aerosol particles and their distribution in the atmosphere." The researchers found that gases transported to high altitudes by deep, convective clouds in the tropics formed large numbers of very small aerosol particles, a process called gas-to-particle conversion.

Outside the clouds, the air descended toward the surface and those particles grew as gases condensed onto some particles and others stuck together to form fewer, bigger particles. Eventually, some of the particles became large enough to influence cloud properties in the lower troposphere.

In their study, the researchers showed that these particles brightened clouds in the tropics. "That's important since brighter clouds reflect more energy from the sun back to space," Williamson said.

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