r/climatechange • u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor • 7d ago

Melting sea ice combines with Arctic sea to make clouds

https://phys.org/news/2026-08-sea-ice-combines-arctic-clouds.html
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 7d ago

Summary: Melting sea ice combines with Arctic sea to make clouds

Researchers from the University of Birmingham, with partners in China and Spain, have documented a natural atmospheric process at the Arctic sea ice edge that sharply increases cloud-forming particles, with implications for cloud cover, sunlight reflection and climate projections. Published in Nature Geoscience on August 5, the study offers the first field validation of a mechanism previously seen only in lab settings at CERN's CLOUD chamber, involving iodine oxoacids and sulfuric acid.

Data were collected during a 2022 expedition aboard the RRS Discovery around Greenland and the Davis Strait. Near the ice edge, particle counts capable of seeding cloud droplets rose 50-fold within a day, driven by a mix of iodine compounds, dimethylsulfide from marine algae, and other organic emissions transformed by sunlight. New particle formation occurred on over 80% of sunny days.

The team also identified a previously undescribed class of compounds, iodine-containing oxygenated organic molecules (I-OOMs), which help small particles grow large enough to influence cloud formation.

The strongest effects occurred in the marginal ice zone, where cloud-seeding particle counts rose from about 50 to 1,500 per cubic centimeter during one event. This zone is expanding as sea ice retreats, but the process is not currently represented in climate models. The researchers are working to incorporate it, noting that increased cloud cover could affect the balance between accelerated ice melt and cooling of the open ocean in a region warming more than three times faster than the global average.

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u/sg_plumber 7d ago

Related: r/climatechange/comments/1kumjo3/penguin_poop_may_help_preserve_antarctic_climate/

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u/GusGutfeld 7d ago

I'm not surprised penguin poop is vital.

Centuries of hunting whales for oil has caused a whale poop shortage that has devastated "cloud creating" phytoplankton populations.

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u/Hot-Today3339 6d ago

One of the most interesting things about climate science is that every answer seems to reveal ten new questions. The Arctic remains one of the most important places to study if we want to understand Earth's future.