We’re Beginning to Understand How Rainstorms Get So Extreme

June 14, 2016

Aerosol particles—the tiny bits of dust and other matter expelled by everything from volcanoes and dust storms to car exhaust and power plants—might be making thunderstorms more extreme, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Clouds form when water droplets coalesce around these tiny particles suspended in the air. Put simply, the more aerosols are in the air, the longer the cloud system lasts before it begins to dissipate into rain, thanks to a larger structure of particles to support and accumulate more water vapor—giving the cloud system more time to accrue water content and become larger and more powerful. All this results in more extreme rainstorms, the researchers from the University of Texas, the University of Colorado Boulder, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory found

Newsweek, June 14, 2016

Featuring: Sudip Chakraborty, Ph.D. student, Jackson School of Geosciences; Rong Fu, Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences