A short post to illustrate the changing nature of aerosol in the atmosphere in terms of their spatial extent, source and properties. There are two images below showing the scene from the TERRA satellite as it passed over the Eastern Atlantic off the coast of Morocco. The first image shows the plume of smoke from wildfires from Madeira that swept through the island last weekend. The second image sh ...[Read More]
Sweeping soot out of the atmosphere
Efforts to slow the rate of global temperature rise in the 21st Century have for some time focussed on non-CO2 species or so-called ‘short-lived forcers’. As far as aerosols are concerned, black carbon (often referred to as soot) has been the main avenue to explore due to its capacity to warm the atmosphere by absorbing sunlight. Black carbon contrasts with most other aerosol species w ...[Read More]
If it wasn’t for those pesky aerosols…
Climate change is a subject that science knows a lot about; broadly, we can demonstrate that greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere over the past 200 years or so due to our burning of fossil fuels and that this has led to a rise in temperatures across the globe. However, our atmosphere is a complex beast and we have proven particularly adept at altering it. It turns out that as well a ...[Read More]