Washington, August 15: Using a novel theoretical approach, researchers from NASA and other institutions have identified the common thread that determines how aerosols from human activity, like the particles from burning of vegetation and forests, influence cloud cover and ultimately affect climate.
The study improves researchers’ ability to predict whether aerosols will increase or decrease cloud cover.
“We connected the dots to draw a critical conclusion, and found evidence over the Amazon that traces the direct path of the effect of human activity on climate change by way of human-caused aerosols,” said study co-author Lorraine Remer, a physical scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.