Latest Sulfate Stories

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, has found particles from the upper atmosphere trapped in a deep pile of Antarctic snow that hold clear chemical traces of global meteorological events. The study was published in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and suggests anomalies in oxygen found in sulfate particles coincide with several episodes of...

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Researchers uncover how microorganisms on the ocean floor protect the atmosphere against methane Microbiologists and geochemists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, along with their colleagues from Vienna and Mainz, show that marine methane oxidation coupled to sulfate respiration can be performed by a single microorganism, a member of the ancient kingdom of the Archaea, and does not need to be carried out in collaboration with a bacterium, as...

New information on the role of insoluble dust particles in forming cloud droplets could improve the accuracy of regional climate models, especially in areas of the world that have significant amounts of mineral aerosols in the atmosphere. A more accurate accounting for the role of these particles could also have implications for global climate models. Cloud properties can have a significant impact on climate, yet the effects of aerosols like dust is one of the more uncertain components of...

Climatologists have known for decades that airborne particles called aerosols can have a powerful impact on the climate. However, pinpointing the magnitude of the effect has proven challenging because of difficulties associated with measuring the particles on a global scale.Soon a new NASA satellite -- Glory -- should help scientists collect the data needed to provide firmer answers about the important particles. In California, engineers and technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base are...

Converting acid rain chemicals into useful productsPower plants that burn fossil fuels remain the main source of electricity generation across the globe. Modern power plants have scrubbers to remove sulfur compounds from their flue gases, which has helped reduce the problem of acid rain. Now, researchers in India have devised a way to convert the waste material produced by the scrubbing process into value-added products. They describe details in the International Journal of Environment and...

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have taken a new approach on examining a proposal to fix the warming planet. So-called geoengineering ideas"”large-scale projects to change the Earth's climate"”have included erecting giant mirrors in space to reflect solar radiation, injecting aerosols of sulfate into the stratosphere making a global sunshade, and much more. Past modeling of the sulfate idea looked at how the stratospheric aerosols might affect Earth's...

On March 20, Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano woke from its nearly 200-year slumber to change the way the world viewed volcanoes forever. Bringing almost all transatlantic air travel to a halt for the first time in modern history, this volcano reminded humanity of the powers these forces of nature contain "“ and of our relative inability to understand them. Associate Professor Huiming Bao of LSU's Department of Geology & Geophysics has published research in the journal Nature about...

Particulate pollution thought to be holding climate change in check by reflecting sunlight instead enhances warming when combined with airborne soot, a new study has found.Like a black car on a bright summer day, soot absorbs solar energy. Recent atmospheric models have ranked soot, also called black carbon, second only to carbon dioxide in potential for atmospheric warming. But particles, or aerosols, such as soot mix with other chemicals in the atmosphere, complicating estimates of their...

By Phillips, Vaughan T J DeMott, Paul J; Andronache, Constantin ABSTRACT A novel, flexible framework is proposed for parameterizing the heterogeneous nucleation of ice within clouds. It has empirically derived dependencies on the chemistry and surface area of multiple species of ice nucleus (IN) aerosols. Effects from variability in mean size, spectral width, and mass loading of aerosols are represented via their influences on surface area. The parameterization is intended for application in...

By Barry Stone Q: We moved into our home about three months ago, and this week we had a professional inspection of the septic system. The septic contractor found a large mass of tree roots in the tank and recommended that we flush about 10 pounds of copper sulfate down the toilet. He said this would eventually kill the roots. I'm concerned that the copper sulfate won't get rid of the roots or that it might harm or kill the two large trees in my front yard. What do you recommend? A: Your...