Scientists are learning more about “sesquiterpenes" vapors made from trees.

Clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in climate predictions.

In a paper published this month in Science Advances, Dada’s team establishes a new heavy hitter in cloud creation: a kind of chemical released by trees.

The role of trees in seeding clouds is important, because it suggests what the sky above some regions might be like if governments manage to tamp down sulfur emissions.

In a world with less pollution, plants and trees will become more dominant drivers of cloud formation, an echo of the premodern world.

While anthropogenic emissions dominate cloud formation in populated areas, plant volatiles dominate over more pristine land elsewhere.

  • Treevan 🇦🇺@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    https://www.wired.com/story/a-revelation-about-trees-is-messing-with-climate-calculations/

    “We’re coming to realize more and more that we don’t really know exactly what a pristine atmosphere is like.”

    While anthropogenic emissions dominate cloud formation in populated areas, plant volatiles dominate over more pristine land elsewhere.

    “We are seeing more and more because our instruments are much better now,” she says.

    To Fan, the new data suggests that sesquiterpenes may help better account for the global flow of aerosols.

    Aerosols make clouds deflect more heat away from Earth-an effect known as “Radiative forcing.” More aerosols mean more reflective clouds that look whiter, last longer, and rain less.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Depending on location, cloud cover can reflect sunlight away from land and ocean that would otherwise absorb its heat—a rare perk in the warming world.

    The other half nucleates around vapors released by living things or machines, like the sulfur dioxide that arises from burning fossil fuels.

    Her team of scientists from around the world wanted to re-create the air above forests, because a “pristine” atmosphere hints at what cloud formation was like before industrialization.

    In a paper published this month in Science Advances, Dada’s team establishes a new heavy hitter in cloud creation: a kind of chemical released by trees.

    Dada’s new work focuses on an overlooked class of less abundant volatiles called sesquiterpenes, which smell woody, earthy, citrusy, or spicy, depending on the molecule and type of plant or microbe that emits them.

    The role of trees in seeding clouds is important, because it suggests what the sky above some regions might be like if governments manage to tamp down sulfur emissions.

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