Tag Archive for 'Aerosol'

Air pollution is increasing the severity of summertime thunderstorms. Image credit: ELG21.

Air Pollution Can Increase Severity of Summertime Thunderstorms, Study Says

Aug 20, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Scientists from James Madison University have performed a multi-variable investigation of thunderstorm environments in two distinct geographic regions:...

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

‘Nanoparticle Warming’ Have Potential to Warm Mars, Planetary Scientists Say

Aug 8, 2024 by News Staff

One-third of Mars’ surface has shallow-buried water, but it is currently too cold for use by life. Proposals to warm Mars using greenhouse gases require...

This map shows that lightning occurs mostly over land compared to ocean; the gray rectangle indicates the region of interest from 50°W to 50°E and 20°S to 20°N. Image credit: Pan et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-31714-5.

Salt in Sea Spray Aerosols Inhibits Lightning during Marine Thunderstorms: Study

Aug 4, 2022 by News Staff

In a study published this week in the journal Nature Communications, scientists tested the hypothesis that fine and coarse marine aerosols have opposite...

This diagram shows three layers of aerosols in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. The height scale on the diagram represents the pressure above 10 bar. The deepest layer (Aerosol-1 layer) is thick and composed of a mixture of hydrogen sulfide ice and particles produced by the interaction of the planets’ atmospheres with sunlight. The key layer that affects the colors is the middle layer, which is a layer of haze particles (Aerosol-2 layer) that is thicker on Uranus than on Neptune. Irwin et al. suspect that, on both planets, methane ice condenses onto the particles in this layer, pulling the particles deeper into the atmosphere in a shower of methane snow. Because Neptune has a more active, turbulent atmosphere than Uranus does, the team believes Neptune’s atmosphere is more efficient at churning up methane particles into the haze layer and producing this snow. This removes more of the haze and keeps Neptune’s haze layer thinner than it is on Uranus, meaning the blue color of Neptune looks stronger. Above both of these layers is an extended layer of haze (Aerosol-3 layer) similar to the layer below it but more tenuous. On Neptune, large methane ice particles also form above this layer. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / NASA / JPL-Caltech / B. Jónsson.

Haze Layers are Responsible for Different Blue Hues of Neptune and Uranus, Scientists Say

Jun 1, 2022 by News Staff

An international team of planetary researchers led by University of Oxford scientists has performed an analysis of visible/near-infrared observations of...

The discovery of a spike of mercury in 252-million-year-old rock at locations around the world gives evidence for the prevailing theory that volcanic eruptions caused the end-Permian extinction. Image credit: Margaret Weiner / University of Cincinnati Creative Services.

Siberian Volcanic Eruptions Triggered End-Permian Mass Extinction, New Study Confirms

Jun 22, 2021 by News Staff

The end-Permian mass extinction — the most severe extinction event in the past 540 million years — was caused by massive volcanic eruptions...

This transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 isolated from a patient in the U.S. Image credit: NIAID-RML.

SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Stable for Several Hours to Days in Aerosols and on Surfaces

Mar 18, 2020 by News Staff

A novel human coronavirus that is now named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019 and is now causing...