Tiny particles bubbling up from the tops of melting sea ice into the Arctic sky may be a key, understudied element of cloud formation in that climate-sensitive region.
Tiny particles bubbling up from the tops of melting sea ice into the Arctic sky may be a key, understudied element of cloud formation in that climate-sensitive region.
Researchers from Colorado State University have published findings in Geophysical Research Letters that highlight how these airborne “ice-nucleating particles” from biological sources, such as bacteria, provide a platform for the creation of clouds. Because cloud cover plays an important role in the balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing heat, as well as precipitation, these particles may be key to developing a better understanding of climate change in the Arctic.
Ice-nucleating particles can come in the form of things like mineral dust, microbes or sea spray. As they make their way into the atmosphere, they act as templates for water vapor to freeze on to support cloud formation. The new paper highlights ponds of melted water that sit on top of sea ice as a key source of these particles.
The ponds are made of melted snow but can also include a mix of seawater that has seeped in as well as released soil sediment or melted ice from the pack of ice below that hosts small organisms. By taking sea-ice core samples and measuring aerosol emissions around these pools, the team was able to show that ice-nucleating particle concentrations were higher there than in seawater. That likely means there are specific biological processes at play in these pools, contributing to their formation.
Read More: Colorado State University
Image: Cloud cover seen from the ground. (Credit: Colorado State University/Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering)
