Aerosols & Climate Change
Introduction Aerosols are tiny particles suspended in the air. Some occur naturally, originating from volcanoes, dust storms, forest and grassland fires, living vegetation, and sea spray. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and the alteration of natural surface cover, also generate aerosols. Averaged over the globe, aerosols made by human activities currently account for about 10 percent of the total amount of aerosols in our atmosphere. Most of that 10 percent is concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere, especially downwind of industrial sites, slash-and-burn agricultural regions, and overgrazed grasslands. Scientists have much to learn about the way aerosols affect regional and global climate. We have yet to accurately quantify the relative impacts on climate of natural aerosols and those of human origin. Moreover, we do not know in what regions of the planet the amount of atmospheric aerosol is increasing, is diminishing, and is remaining roughly constant. Overall, we are even unsure whether aerosols are warming or cooling our planet. Why do we care about aerosols? Aerosols tend to cause cooling of the Earth's surface immediately below them. Because most aerosols reflect sunlight back into space, they have a "direct" cooling effect by reducing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface. The magnitude of this cooling effect depends on the size and composition of the aerosol particles, as well as the reflective properties of the underlying surface. It is thought that aerosol cooling may partially offset expected global warming that is attributed to increases in the amount of carbon dioxide from human activity. Aerosols are also believed to have an "indirect" effect on climate by changing properties of clouds. Indeed, if there were no aerosols in the atmosphere, there would be no clouds. It is very difficult to form clouds without small aerosol particles acting as "seeds" to start the formation of cloud droplets. As aerosol concentration increases within a cloud, the water in the cloud gets spread over many more particles, each of which is correspondingly smaller. Smaller particles fall more slowly in the atmosphere and decrease the amount of rainfall. In this way, changing aerosols in the atmosphere can change the frequency of cloud occurence, cloud thickness, and rainfall amounts.
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