Sea Creatures Make Brighter Clouds to Cool the Earth

Green globs of little critters in the ocean are responsible for half of the cloud droplets that cover the Southern Ocean during the summer ⬇️

Green globs of little critters in the ocean are responsible for half of the cloud droplets that cover the Southern Ocean during the summer, a new study finds. This link between the critters and clouds provides needed insight for predicting the effects of climate change, the researchers say.

Understanding the link between marine life and cloud droplet formation is a vital part of climate change predictions."We need to know if we're already saturated in terms of aerosols affecting clouds and making them brighter,” said Daniel McCoy, one of the lead authors of the study and a doctoral student in atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Since the aerosols are difficult to distinguish when viewed from space, the researchers used models that tracked the compound dimethyl sulfide, which is released by phytoplankton and turns into a sulfate aerosol in the atmosphere. They also designed a model that included simulations of the process by which salty water known as"sea spray" is enriched with organic matter produced by phytoplankton .

The researchers found that they could predict the observed concentration of cloud droplets with their model. The results were"interesting in a climate sense, because the amount of sunlight that is being reflected by these clouds is to some extent determined by the number of cloud droplets," McCoy told Live Science.

Most sulfate aerosols rise in the Northern Hemisphere as a result of industrial activity, such as burning coal. These tiny particles tend to linger in the atmosphere for only about three to five days.

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'Dwarf dinosaur' that lived on prehistoric island unearthed in TransylvaniaJoAnna Wendel is a freelance science writer living in Portland, Oregon. She mainly covers Earth and planetary science but also loves the ocean, invertebrates, lichen and moss. JoAnna's work has appeared in Eos, Smithsonian Magazine, Knowable Magazine, Popular Science and more. JoAnna is also a science cartoonist and has published comics with Gizmodo, NASA, Science News for Students and more. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in general sciences because she couldn't decide on her favorite area of science. In her spare time, JoAnna likes to hike, read, paint, do crossword puzzles and hang out with her cat, Pancake.
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