Atmospheric Brown Cloud

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An Atmospheric Brown Cloud over China
Big brown cloud storm over Asia

An Atmospheric Brown Cloud (abbreviated to ABC ) is an environmental phenomenon that looks like a brown cloud on satellite images , but does not consist of liquid water like normal clouds, but of dust and exhaust gases.

Effects

The Atmospheric Brown Cloud over the northern Indian Ocean has an impact on radiation warming, atmospheric gases, water supply, the health of living beings and agriculture in the region. In particular, Atmospheric Brown Clouds are seen as one of the reasons why the temperature does not rise as quickly as was expected according to some models. It is estimated that atmospheric brown clouds have slowed global warming by 50 percent so far. However, the absorption of sunlight by the Atmospheric Brown Clouds not only cools the surface but also heats up the atmosphere. Scientists suspect this could have harmful effects.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Paul J. Crutzen : New Directions: Atmospheric Brown `` Clouds ''. (PDF; 79 kB) 2003, accessed on October 10, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Muvva V. Ramana, Gregory Roberts, Dohyeong Kim, Craig Corrigan, Chul Chung & David Winker: Warming trends in Asia amplified by brown cloud solar absorption. August 2, 2007, accessed October 10, 2013 .