Nicosia: New ground-breaking research, led by the CLOUD team at CERN, which includes researchers from the Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C) of The Cyprus Institute, has discovered that isoprene, a compound released by trees, is found in surprisingly high levels in the tropical upper troposphere.
According to Cyprus News Agency, a press release by the Cyprus Institute says that researchers have found that isoprene significantly contributes to new particle formation, which in turn leads to cloud formation, and can act as a mitigator against climate change. The research findings, published in the prestigious journal Nature, suggest that natural sources, like forests, might have contributed significantly to cloud formations in the past and could change how we understand climate sensitivity and future warming.
This means, it adds, that as we reduce air pollution, the natural environment might help offset some of the warming effects brought about by climate change, underlining the importance of the
natural environment in addressing the climate crisis. Associate Professor Theodoros Christoudias of The Cyprus Institute noted that ‘this discovery reshapes our understanding of natural climate processes. By revealing that isoprene released from forests is capable of forming cloud-seeding particles, we see a pathway through which nature itself has historically influenced the Earth’s climate. At a time when reducing emissions is critical in tackling the climate crisis, understanding the profound role of forests and the natural environment helps us refine model predictions, by illuminating a natural mechanism that wasn’t fully understood until now.’
The CLOUD Experiment at CERN allows for measuring aerosol nucleation and growth under cosmic rays. Atmospheric aerosols and their effect on clouds are recognised by the IPCC as the main uncertainty in climate models. The Cyprus Institute participates in the CLOUD experiment via its Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C) by performing atmospheric, climate,
and air quality modelling with global and regional models, and comparing CLOUD data with those obtained in field campaigns over land, e.g. the tropics, marine and urban regions, the press release says.