Pollution from Asia found to intensify storms
Sky over Guangzhou (Canton), China. Photo by 23 hours
Pollution from China and India is a direct cause of intensified storm systems over the Pacific.
That’s according to Renyi Zhang of Texas A&M University. What’s more, he says, this pollution has important consequences for global weather.
Zhang and colleagues found that the number of deeper Pacific storm clouds that tower high into the atmosphere near China and India has more than doubled over the last 10 years. Using NASA satellite imagery and state-of-the-art computer weather models, Zhang showed a link between intensified storms and Asian pollution.
Zhang told Earth & Sky that Asian factories pump soot and sulfate particles into the air. Prevailing winds send this pollution over the Pacific. A tiny soot particle can act as a “condensation nucleus,” he said. That’s a surface on which water vapor can condense into a cloud droplet.
Lots of pollution means lots of condensation nuclei, and lots of cloud droplets. The more cloud droplets there are, the smaller their average size, and the faster they rise. These cloud dynamics, along with other pressure and moisture conditions, result in intensified storms over the Pacific. These storms move across the west coast of North America, bringing wild weather in their wake.
Thanks today to NASA – explore, discover, understand.
Dr. Zhang added: “The Pacific storm track is a very important weather event in the northern hemisphere during the winter, and a change in the storm track will likely have important consequences on the global weather and climate. Our research represents the first to suggest that the Pacific storm track is intensified by pollution from Asian continent over the past decade. This conclusion needs to be further verified by other studies. In addition, the exact effects of a changed Pacific storm track also need to be investigated by future studies by a large scientific community.”
Read Dr. Zhang’s paper on this topic in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Intensification of Pacific storm track linked to Asian pollution
Our thanks to:
Professor Renyi Zhang
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
Additional Teacher Resources
NASA: Visible Earth – Aerosols and Carbon Monoxide over Africa and Asia
This article shows satellite images of aerosol and carbon monoxide pollution over Asia and Africa, and discusses how these pollutants might affect climate, people, and other living things.
NASA: Earth Observatory – Scientists Track Impact of Asian Dust and Pollution on Clouds, Climate Change
Scientists launched a field project to study plumes of airborne dust and pollutants that originate in Asia and journey to North America. The plumes are among the largest such events on Earth, so great in scope that scientists believe they might affect clouds and weather across thousands of miles while interacting with the Suns radiation and playing a role in global climate. The pollution and dust plumes are being studied using one of the Nations newest and most capable research aircraft.
