Pollution Creates Big, Warm Thunderclouds

A new study suggests that pollution is warming up the atmosphere through summer clouds. The atmosphere is warming up because pollution particles in the air strengthen thunderstorm clouds by making the clouds anvil shaped tops, spread out higher in the atmosphere. This captures more heat, especially at night. These large amounts of heat trapped in the clouds can potentially impact regional circulation and modify weather systems. Other studies show that non windy day’s pollution produce bigger clouds. This is because the water in the air is spread between more particles leading to smaller rain droplets that are too small to rain. Than the small particles ride up updrafts to a higher elevation and then freeze. These frozen particles then absorb more water vapor making the clouds bigger and allowing them to live longer. In other studies the thunderstorms that are produced in polluted air led to stronger storms with larger anvils than thunderstorms in non polluted area.

In my opinion I believe that these larger thunderstorms can become a serious problem in speeding up global warming. But I also believe that this will not occur for a very long time. Also, I think we should pollute the air less so that this will never be a problem.

To read this article:  http://www.livescience.com/20445-pollution-creates-big-warm-thunderclouds.html