In 1870, explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, trekking across the barren and remote ice cap of Greenland, saw something most people wouldn’t expect in such an empty, inhospitable landscape: haze.
In 1870, explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, trekking across the barren and remote ice cap of Greenland, saw something most people wouldn’t expect in such an empty, inhospitable landscape: haze.
Nordenskiöld’s record of the haze was among the first evidence that air pollution around the northern hemisphere can travel toward the pole and degrade air quality in the Arctic. Now, a study from University of Utah atmospheric scientist Tim Garrett and colleagues finds that the air in the Arctic is extraordinarily sensitive to air pollution, and that particulate matter may spur Arctic cloud formation. These clouds, Garrett writes, can act as a blanket, further warming an already-changing Arctic.
“The Arctic climate is delicate, just as the ecosystems present there,” Garrett says. “The clouds are right at the edge of their existence and they have a big impact on local climate. It looks like clouds there are especially sensitive to air pollution.” The study is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Continue reading at University of Utah
Photo: A rare case of forest fire smoke interacting with clouds in the Arctic in July 2012. Contour lines indicate carbon monoxide concentrations in the atmosphere. CREDIT: MODIS / NASA
