Brown carbon works both sides of the climate equation
There is an atmospheric particle not satisfied with only a single role in the climate. The ambitious culprit? Brown carbon aerosol steps outside the box and acts to both warm and cool the climate. A brown secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is thought to be created when gases that are emitted from both natural and man-made sources are oxidized under certain environmental conditions. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Nevada at Reno studied the light absorbing and reflecting abilities of SOA formed from alpha-pinene (α-pinene), an important gas that gives off a piney smell and is naturally emitted from both coniferous and deciduous forests. The study is an important step in the continued search for evidence that these particles form from naturally occurring gases and increase dramatically in the presence of pollution from cities.