Plants Play a Big Role in Cloud Formation
Published: Tuesday, Sep 19th 2023, 15:00
Updated At: Friday, Oct 13th 2023, 14:12
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Plants emit gas-phase hydrocarbons called sesquiterpenes, which play a major role in cloud formation. This was discovered by a research team at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva as part of the international atmospheric research project CLOUD. Although these substances are relatively rare, they have a huge effect on the formation of condensation nuclei, which are necessary for cloud formation. Clouds are made up of water droplets, which require tiny particles for condensation. These particles can be solid or liquid, such as sand from the desert, organic gas molecules emitted by trees, or pollutants from industry. Half of these condensation nuclei are formed in the air when different gas molecules combine and transition to a solid state, a process known as nucleation or particle formation. The research team studied this nucleation in a 26 cubic meter stainless steel tank. The most important natural gases contributing to particle formation are hydrocarbons, mainly isoprene, monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes. When these substances oxidise in the air, they form particles. Sesquiterpenes have a particularly strong effect, forming ten times more particles than the other two organic substances at the same concentration. This discovery could help reduce the uncertainties of climate models and make more accurate predictions, by including sesquiterpenes as a separate factor in the models.
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