Volcanoes. You might think of big, loud eruptions.
Glowing lava and dark volcanic ash entering the sky.
But when volcanoes aren’t erupting
they can leak reactive gases into the atmosphere
that form tiny particles known as aerosols.
Aerosols are these tiny particles which are suspended in the atmosphere
and they’re many times smaller than the human hair.
They can scatter and absorb light and can affect clouds.
Studies have shown that volcanic aerosols can change
the properties of water droplets that make up clouds.
To learn more about these changes
scientists analyzed several years of observations
from NASA and European Space Agency satellites.
They specifically looked at how the properties of water droplets
changed around active volcanoes
To avoid interference from other aerosol sources, such as city pollution
researchers compared three isolated islands with volcanic activity to three islands without.
Around the islands with no volcanic activity,
water droplets were mostly unaffected
but around the islands with volcanic activity
water droplets were smaller and the clouds appeared brighter.
Clouds with smaller droplets tend to be brighter
and reflect more heat energy back to space.
If the amount of heat reflected into space changes
this can affect things like rainfall and winds.
Learning more about aerosols and how they interact with clouds
will help scientists like me to better understand and predict future weather and climate.