Paper out: Surface ocean microbiota determine cloud precursors

Our paper ”Surface ocean microbiota determine cloud precursors” is out now in Scientific Reports and you can read it here.

This paper combines work from campaigns in the Mediterranean, Arctic and New Zealand coastal seas to show that there is a relationship between the abundance of seawater nanophytoplankton and sea-spray aerosol. Sea-spray aerosol particles are formed when air bubbles burst as waves break. The particles can affect the properties of clouds by acting as seeds for cloud droplets. The number of available cloud condensation nuclei has an impact on the properties of clouds and further on climate. Our result indicate that including the effect of nanophytoplankton in formation of sea-spray aerosol could be an important addition for climate models.