Aerosols come in many shapes and sizes. They can drift in the atmosphere as spores of pollen, or as sand blown off arid land, or as black carbon - commonly called soot; or as droplets of sulfuric acid and sulfate crystals from volcanos, emissions from industrial smokestacks, vehicles and ships, or sea salt freed from the crests of breaking waves, even microfibers from drying clothes.
They range in size from a few atoms across... to the width of a human hair.
Unlike greenhouse gases, aerosols usually stay near their source, only remaining aloft for a few days or weeks until they fall to earth. Despite that, they can have complex and far-reaching consequences for weather, climate, other Earth systems and human health. Naturally forming aerosols haven’t markedly increased in the last hundred years, but the amount of human-caused aerosols has soared dramatically.
In this episode of Mongabay Explains, we try to understand how aerosols are changing our world.
#mongabay #aerosols #globalwarming #climatechange #MongabayExplains
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