New Discovery Made About Cloud Formation, Positive Implication for Global Warming

A recent discovery about the process of cloud formation may cut down some of the more adverse predictions associated with global warming and their implications for our planet. A team of scientists has reportedly found that some clouds are created by a combination of gases emitted by trees and cosmic rays from space.

"What this will do is slightly reduce and sharpen the projections for temperature during the 21st century," said Jasper Kirkby, lead researcher from Geneva's European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). "However, we are definitely warming the planet". The study by Kirkby and his team revealed a previously unknown process that forms atmospheric particles around which clouds get created. Incidentally, the commonest sources of particles that help in cloud formation are sulfuric acid emitted from fossil fossils on being burnt, which in plain terms is air pollution. Natural sources too contribute to cloud formation but they are considered less important in the process.

According to Kirkby's research, the amalgamation of gas given out by trees and cosmic rays that come from space also create the particles that can form clouds, apart from pollution. The scientists came to the conclusion after replicating the phenomena in a cloud simulation chamber in an observatory located atop a mountain in Switzerland. Kirkby, however, added that such a process can effectively take place only in pristine environments, which are gradually becoming fewer due to the gradual increase in pollution particles.

In the past, scientists have suggested that the pre-industrial era saw fewer clouds. However, with the recent discovery that clouds can form without air pollution, the researching team feels that the cloud cover in those days was in fact more than is generally believed now. Moreover, greenhouse gases linked to industrialization couldn't have been that potent in generating warming because the clouds, formed due to tree emissions and cosmic rays, cooled our planet by reflecting sunlight back to space. On the basis of the study, the team suggests that since greenhouses gases were not so harmful for global warming in the past, therefore the same can be possible in the future. According to reports, Kirkby's model and study has been criticized by other scientists, who have found flaws and feel that more research is needed about the topic.