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Originally published in Science Express on 15 August 2002
Science 6 September 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5587, pp. 1667 - 1670
DOI: 10.1126/science.1073869
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Research Articles

The Role of Sea Spray in Cleansing Air Pollution over Ocean via Cloud Processes

Daniel Rosenfeld, Ronen Lahav, Alexander Khain, Mark Pinsky

Particulate air pollution has been shown to strongly suppress precipitation from convective clouds over land. New observations show that precipitation from similar polluted clouds over oceans is much less affected, because large sea salt nuclei override the precipitation suppression effect of the large number of small pollution nuclei. Raindrops initiated by the sea salt grow by collecting small cloud droplets that form on the pollution particles, thereby cleansing the air. Therefore, sea salt helps cleanse the atmosphere of the air pollution via cloud processes. This implies that over oceans, the climatic aerosol indirect effects are significantly smaller than current estimates.

Institute of Earth Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Flood or Drought: How Do Aerosols Affect Precipitation?.
D. Rosenfeld, U. Lohmann, G. B. Raga, C. D. O'Dowd, M. Kulmala, S. Fuzzi, A. Reissell, and M. O. Andreae (2008)
Science 321, 1309-1313
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Smoking Rain Clouds over the Amazon.
M. O. Andreae, D. Rosenfeld, P. Artaxo, A. A. Costa, G. P. Frank, K. M. Longo, and M. A. F. Silva-Dias (2004)
Science 303, 1337-1342
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Reactions at Interfaces As a Source of Sulfate Formation in Sea-Salt Particles.
A. Laskin, D. J. Gaspar, W. Wang, S. W. Hunt, J. P. Cowin, S. D. Colson, and B. J. Finlayson-Pitts (2003)
Science 301, 340-344
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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