Sunday, May 06, 2007

Restructuring the Atmosphere

Current models about global warming, weather, etc. assume we understood the structure of the atmosphere. Well, not exactly. NASA reports that perhaps 60% of the atmospheric volume considered "cloud-free" actually has a kind of extremely thin haze - a transition zone where aerosol particles absorb water and where incipient clouds are starting to form or existing clouds have dissolved. Our models of the atmosphere will need to be adjusted as more data is gathered about a widespread phenomenon we did not know existed.

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