Scientists have confirmed that the transformation of clouds into ice in our planet’s atmosphere occurs under the influence of dust particles that fly here from the planet’s surface. They can have a significant impact on the weather.
Dust in the clouds
Based on 35 years of observations, Swiss scientists have made a very important conclusion regarding ice formation in Earth’s clouds. Satellite data allowed them to establish that the speed of the process correlates with the presence of dust raised by the wind from the Earth.
In general, there is nothing surprising about this observation. Everyone knows that for water to start freezing, there must be some kind of crystallization center in it. It should be the same with water droplets in clouds, but no one has observed the process yet.
And now, the first study has appeared which, although not entirely directly, shows a connection between dust entering clouds and the formation of ice crystals, into which the entire upper part of the cloud sometimes transforms. This could cause an increase in albedo, resulting in most of the solar energy being reflected back into space.
Northern clouds
The key point in all this research was that it was conducted for clouds in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, i.e., for Eurasia, North America, and the North Atlantic. Clouds can form here at temperatures as low as -39°C.
Theoretically, there should be much more dust over the Sahara. However, the fact that there are few water droplets in the atmosphere above this zone probably plays a role here. And a very interesting question about what is happening in the temperate latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere.
There is an ocean practically everywhere, but snow clouds still form. There is a hypothesis that the centers of crystallization here are not small water droplets carried by the wind to high altitudes.
According to phys.org
