For micron scale particles fine-grain polycrystalline ceramics were impacted and fractured, launching particulate clouds at velocities of 15 km/s.
"There were thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel and an immense, dense particulate matter cloud that enveloped these workers for days".
Climate models will have improved slightly, particularly in how they handle atmospheric particulates and cloud formation.
Let's hope that for their sake, we won't have to worry about more particulate matter clouding the air.
This mechanism has not been considered in climate models before". Clouds form when water vapor condenses on atmospheric particulates called cloud condensation nuclei (CCN).
The research team, co-led by Athanasios Nenes, professor and Georgia Power Faculty Scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been focused on understanding the impacts of aerosols, or airborne particulate matter, on clouds, because clouds have such a significant influence over our climate.
Ordinarily, airborne particulates seed clouds, he explains, but black carbon particles can get hot enough to vaporize water and prevent clouds from forming at all.
In fact, it is too early to say exactly how changes in the Earth's albedo will affect the climate, since climatologists' models of albedo, particulates and clouds are still very much a work in progress.
Does airborne particulate matter affect cloud formation?
The release of particulates, however, promotes cloud formation and so has a cooling effect.A study by a team led by James Hansen of America's space agency, NASA, has looked in detail at the net effects of these factors.
