Organic aerosols are emitted as primary aerosol particles or formed as secondary
aerosol particles from condensation of organic gases considered semi-volatile or having low volatility.
Fan's most recent paper appeared in Science and investigated the influence of ultrafine
aerosol particles from urban areas on severe storms.
But the team found that the smoke and cloud layers are closer together than expected so that
aerosol particles from the smoke act as nuclei for cloud droplets to form around.
Less understood — and more difficult to measure — is the influence of
aerosol particles from human sources, particularly the use of coal and other fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, the exact mechanisms of interactions between clouds and tiny
aerosol particles from pollution, dust, and soot remained largely a mystery.
Not exact matches
This year, Summit's list of long - term visitors includes Brandon Strellis, an environmental engineering graduate student
from the Georgia Institute of Technology studying how
aerosols influence how much energy is reflected and absorbed by Greenland's ice — and where those
particles are coming
from.
Another source of uncertainty comes
from the direct effect of
aerosols from human origins: How much do they reflect and absorb sunlight directly as
particles?
For the study, Dr. Toohey and his colleagues
from GEOMAR and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg have used an
aerosol - climate model to track 70 different eruption scenarios while analyzing the distribution of the sulfur
particles.
It then combines with pollutants
from combustion — mainly nitrogen oxides and sulfates
from vehicles, power plants and industrial processes — to create tiny solid
particles, or
aerosols, no more than 2.5 micrometers across, about 1/30 the width of a human hair.
The research focuses on the power of minute airborne
particles known as
aerosols, which can come
from urban and industrial air pollution, wildfires and other sources.
When more
aerosols are added to the air, like
from ship exhaust, water molecules have more
particles to collect around.
Called ultrafine
aerosols, the
particles are found in everything
from auto emissions to wildfire smoke to printer toner.
Sulphate pollution
from power stations and factory chimneys produces
aerosol particles in the atmosphere which encourage clouds to form.
In order to keep
aerosols from harming the ozone, the
particles would need to neutralize sulfuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acid on their surface.
Aerosols are both natural and man - made, and include windblown desert dust, sea salt, smoke
from fires, sulfurous
particles from volcanic eruptions, and
particles from fossil fuel combustion.
These
particles pose health risks to populations, especially to the medically vulnerable, By infusing CATS data directly into
aerosol models, data
from CATS can make a difference in tracking and responding to impacts of similar events in the future.
Aerosol particles come
from many sources, including human emissions.
«Ceramic
particles supply digital X-ray plates «
from an
aerosol can».»
By engineering breaking waves of natural ocean water under purified air in the lab, they were able to isolate and analyze
aerosols from the spray and determine how life within the water altered the chemistry of the
particles.
The step
from moisture to clouds involves cooling, seed
particles (including pollutant
aerosols) and global wind patterns that blow the moisture
from its place of origin to its place of condensation.
That's because scientists have presumed that most of the
aerosols from minor eruptions do not rise beyond the troposphere, the layer of Earth's atmosphere where weather occurs and where natural processes quickly clear
particles from the atmosphere.
Now an international team of researchers led by the lung researcher Marianne Geiser
from the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Bern and the
aerosol researcher Josef Dommen
from the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has shown that secondary
particles from gasoline combustion in Euro 5 engines directly damage lung tissue as well as weaken its defense functions.
A newly developed
aerosol deposition chamber also allowed for the
particles to be realistically deposited on cell cultures
from healthy and diseased airways.
Sophisticated microscopic instruments were used to look for iron - containing nanoscale
particles — specifically locating them
from thousands of
aerosol particles.
The tiny
aerosol particles can originate
from e.g. dust, pollen or sea spray, emitted straight into the atmosphere or they can be formed
from precursor gases.
IPCC scientists have suspected for a decade that
aerosols of smoke and other
particles from burning rainforest, crop waste and fossil fuels are blocking sunlight and counteracting the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions.
Aerosols are solid or liquid
particles suspended in the atmosphere, consisting of (in rough order of abundance): sea salt, mineral dust, inorganic salts such as ammonium sulfate (which has natural as well as anthropogenic sources
from e.g. coal burning), and carbonaceous
aerosol such as soot, plant emissions, and incompletely combusted fossil fuel.
«
From agglomerates of spheres to irregularly shaped particles: Determination of dynamic shape factors from measurements of mobility and vacuum aerodynamic diameters,» Aerosol Science and Technology 40 (3): 197 -
From agglomerates of spheres to irregularly shaped
particles: Determination of dynamic shape factors
from measurements of mobility and vacuum aerodynamic diameters,» Aerosol Science and Technology 40 (3): 197 -
from measurements of mobility and vacuum aerodynamic diameters,»
Aerosol Science and Technology 40 (3): 197 - 217.
The results, said co-author and PNNL laboratory fellow Ruby Leung, «strongly suggest that increasing
aerosol concentrations (
particles, mainly soot and sulfur, that pollute the air) in the past has produced a fog - like haze that has reduced solar radiation (surface heat
from sunshine), despite more frequent clear days that should lead to increased solar radiation.»
Additional
aerosol mass composed of organosulfate and organonitrate chemicals can then form via nitrogen oxide - initiated oxidation of VOCs
from natural vegetation (e.g., isoprene) in the presence of highly acidic ultrafine
particles.
Incoming energy, which comes primarily
from the sun, is turned into various forms of absorbed energy, depending on terrain and atmospheric conditions such as clouds and
aerosol particles.
A large portion of secondary organic
aerosols - tiny
particles in the air we breathe that contribute to cloud formation and precipitation - arise
from a combination of man - made pollution and molecules given off by plant matter.
Results: Ubiquitous carbon - rich
aerosol particles created by emissions
from cars, trees, and other sources alter our climate and affect air quality.
Secondary organic
aerosols, or SOAs, are created when hydrocarbon gases, given off by everything
from pine trees to snow blowers, undergo a series of chemical reactions in the atmosphere to produce
particles.
The organic
aerosol particles that coat the toxic hitchhikers are wafted into the atmosphere through emissions
from trees (like those that produce the smell of pine trees), and burning biomass and fossil fuel to form a semi-solid sap - like casing surrounding and protecting the
particle's payload
from breaking down in the atmosphere.
In the middle of the last century, for example, soot and other
particles spewing
from factory smokestacks, collectively known as
aerosols — cooled the planet for a couple of decades.
In addition, birds have unique respiratory tracts that are especially vulnerable to inhaled
particles and fumes
from aerosol products, tobacco products, certain glues, paints, and air fresheners.
Press release (emphases added):... scientists have succeeded for the first time in directly observing that the electrically charged
particles coming
from space and hitting the atmosphere at high speed contribute to creating the
aerosols that are the prerequisites for cloud formation.
Maybe one could add instead: «This downward radiation
from greenhouse gases (and some fine solid air
particles («
aerosols») e.g. can be measured at the surface in nights with clear sky and no other radiation sources in the atmosphere (e.g. Philipona and Dürr 2004 doi / 10.1029 / 2004GL020937).
A paper discussing the difficulty of getting
from nm sized nucleation mode to a size that can generate cloud
particles is: Erupe, M. E., et al. (2010), Correlation of
aerosol nucleation rate with sulfuric acid and ammonia in Kent, Ohio: An atmospheric observation, J. Geophys.
Scientists found that emissions of tiny air
particles from human - made sources — known as anthropogenic
aerosols — were the cause.
The parameterization of the interactions are at all levels;
from estimation of the geometric characterization of the
aerosols, to the numbers of
particles, to connections with several important aspects of clouds, and finally to the interactions with radiative energy transport.
Ambient submicron
particle measurements were made with a high - resolution time - of - flight
aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) at the north campus of the University of California Irvine, which is located in the SoCAB approximately 5 miles inland
from the Pacific Ocean.
The remainder is made up with the other minor greenhouse gases, ozone and methane for instance, and a small amount
from particles in the air (dust and other «
aerosols»).
It then combines with pollutants
from combustion — mainly nitrogen oxides and sulfates
from vehicles, power plants and industrial processes — to create tiny solid
particles, or
aerosols, no more than 2.5 micrometers across, about 1/30 the width of a human hair.
In response, the IPCC added a cooling factor to its models of the atmosphere, consisting of tiny
aerosol particles produced by the emission of sulfur dioxide
from electric power plants.
The Stratospheric
Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) III instrument is set to monitor «the Earth's sunscreen,» as well as other gases and
particles,
from the International Space Station.
Several proposals call for injecting microscopic
particles, called
aerosols, into the stratosphere, the quiet region of the atmosphere above the troposphere about 18 kilometers up
from the equator.
Real Climate defines «
aerosols» as ``... solid or liquid
particles suspended in the atmosphere, consisting of (in rough order of abundance): sea salt, mineral dust, inorganic salts such as ammonium sulfate (which has natural as well as anthropogenic sources
from e.g. coal burning), and carbonaceous
aerosol such as soot, plant emissions, and incompletely combusted fossil fuel.»
One positive effect of burning coal is the formation of sulfate
aerosol particles which help in reflecting incoming sunlight away
from the earth.