How will school sunphotometer IOPs help study roles aerosols play in climate and human health?
“The dense concentration of power plants, factories, trucks, and automobiles on the U.S. east coast continuously emit soot and other particulate pollutants into the sky. These small particle suspended in the air — aerosols — often end up interacting with clouds, forming more, smaller droplets than those found in an unpolluted cloud. In this satellite image the yellow clouds scattered over the northeast are polluted clouds with small water droplets. The pink clouds over Canada have larger droplets, and are relatively clean. Because the aerosols prevent cloud water droplets from growing large enough to precipitate, this type of pollution can reduce rainfall”.
