Atmospheric scientists at Washington University in St. Louis discovered abundant fine sea salt aerosol production from wind-blown snow in the central Arctic, increasing seasonal surface warming.
Their findings are reported Sept. 4 in Nature Geoscience.
“The MOSAiC expedition let us observe how aerosols and clouds evolve over the course of a year and led to this discovery,” said Jian Wang, director of the Center for Aerosol Science and Engineering and a professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.
"We found sea salt particles that were much smaller and in higher concentration than expected when there was blowing snow under strong wind conditions,” Wang said.
Though scientists had not observed this phenomenon before, fine sea salt aerosols from blowing snow have always been part of the Arctic climate system. With this observational confirmation and systematic study, which revealed that sea salt particles produced from blowing snow account for about 30% of total aerosol particles, climate models can now be updated to include the effects of these fine particles.
Read more in our news release.
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