Aerosols And Climate: How To Know More About A Known Unknown
Monday, July 2, 2012 - 18:50
in Physics & Chemistry
The influence of aerosols and clouds represent one of the largest known uncertainties in the scientific understanding of trends in our past global climate - and also hinder predictions of future climate change.Researchers have now shown that the rate of condensation of water on organic aerosol particles in the atmosphere can be very slow, taking many hours for a particle to change in size. This could have significant consequences for understanding how clouds are formed, affecting climate.Aerosols are small particles less than 1 micrometer in diameter and clouds are liquid droplets of 1–1,000 micrometers in diameter. read more