Washington [US], September 28 (ANI): Researchers have introduced information from their research that reveal the important position that organic particles, comparable to pollen, spores, and micro organism, play within the growth of ice in Arctic clouds.
These discoveries have been revealed in Nature Communications.
The findings of the research have essential implications for the sector of local weather science and our information of the quickly remodeling Arctic local weather.
The research was carried out over numerous years on the Zeppelin Observatory on the remoted Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, within the High Arctic. Its findings revealed a hyperlink between organic particles and the event of ice in Arctic clouds.
Gabriel Freitas, lead writer and PhD scholar at Stockholm University, detailed their revolutionary method, “We have individually identified and counted these biological particles using a sensitive optical technique reliant on light scattering and UV-induced fluorescence. This precision is essential as we navigate through the challenge of detecting these particles in minuscule concentrations, akin to finding a needle in a haystack.”The research delved into the seasonal dynamics of organic particles, establishing correlations with variables comparable to snow cowl, temperature, and meteorological parameters. Furthermore, the presence of organic particles was confirmed via numerous methodologies, together with electron microscopy and the detection of particular substances, such because the sugar alcohol compounds arabitol and mannitol.
Karl Espen Yttri, senior scientist on the Climate and Environmental Research Institute NILU and a co-author of the research, underscored that: “While arabitol and mannitol are present in various microorganisms, their presence in air are related to fungal spores, and might originate both from local sources or from long range atmospheric transport”.
The quantification of ice nucleating particles and understanding their properties proved to be a cumbersome problem. Researchers employed two distinct strategies, involving the gathering of particles on filters over per week, adopted by rigorous laboratory evaluation.
Yutaka Tobo, Associate Professor on the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and co-author of the research described their technique, “Our method can quantify the ice nucleating ability of aerosol particles immersed in water droplets at temperatures ranging from 0C down to about -30C, thereby revealing the concentration of ambient ice nucleating particles active in Arctic low-level clouds.”Franz Conen, a Research Fellow on the University of Basel, Switzerland, added, “By subjecting the filters to additional heating at 95C, we could identify the proteinaceous component of ice nucleating particles, shedding light on their potential biological origin. Our findings unequivocally establish the prevalence of biological particles contributing to ice nucleation at Zeppelin Observatory.”Paul Zieger, Associate Professor at Stockholm University and co-author, emphasised the essential implication of those findings for local weather science, “This research offers critical insights into the origin and properties of biological and ice nucleating particles in the Arctic that could enable climate model developers to improve the representation of aerosol-cloud interactions in models and reduce uncertainties related to anthropogenic radiative forcing estimates.” (ANI)