Cloud albedo enhancement by surface-active organic solutes in growing droplets

Maria Cristina Facchini (), Mihaela Mircea, Sandro Fuzzi and Robert J. Charlson
Additional contact information
Maria Cristina Facchini: Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e dell'Oceano—Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (ISAO-CNR)
Mihaela Mircea: Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e dell'Oceano—Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (ISAO-CNR)
Sandro Fuzzi: Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e dell'Oceano—Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (ISAO-CNR)
Robert J. Charlson: University of Washington

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6750, 257-259

Abstract: Abstract Understanding the properties of clouds in the Earth's atmosphere is currently limited by difficulties at the fundamental level of adequately describing the processes of cloud droplet nucleation and growth. Small changes in droplet population may significantly influence cloud albedo1 as well as formation of precipitation. Models of cloud formation based on laboratory studies with idealized composition of nuclei suggest that organic solutes significantly lower surface tension2—one of the parameters determining droplet population—but the lack of data on composition and properties of the organic material in the atmosphere precludes realistic laboratory or model studies. Here, we report measurements on vacuum-evaporated samples of cloud water from the Po Valley, Italy, that show a large decrease in surface tension, by up to about one-third relative to pure water, for realistic concentrations of organic solutes expected to exist in growing droplets. Such large surface-tension changes, if they occur in cloud droplets near the critical size for nucleation, lead to an increase in droplet population and hence in cloud albedo. The error produced in ignoring this effect is estimated to be comparable to other calculated direct and indirect influences of aerosols on scattering and absorption of solar radiation3.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/45758 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6750:d:10.1038_45758

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/45758

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().