Description: Environmental conditions regulate the impact of plants on cloud formation

This title appears in the Scientific Report : 2017

Environmental conditions regulate the impact of plants on cloud formation

The terrestrial vegetation emits large amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOC) into the atmosphere, which on oxidation produce secondary organic aerosol (SOA). By acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), SOA influences cloud formation and climate. In a warming climate, changes in environmental...

Personal Name(s):	Zhao, Defeng (Corresponding author)
	Buchholz, Angela / Tillmann, R. / Kleist, E. / Wu, Cheng / Rubach, F. / Kiendler-Scharr, A. / Rudich, Y. / Wildt, Jürgen / Mentel, Th. F.
Contributing Institute:	Pflanzenwissenschaften; IBG-2 Troposphäre; IEK-8
Published in:	Nature Communications, 8 (2017) S. 14067
Imprint:	London Nature Publishing Group 2017
DOI:	10.1038/ncomms14067
PubMed ID:	28218253
Document Type:	Journal Article
Research Program:	Tropospheric trace substances and their transformation processes
Link:	OpenAccess OpenAccess
	Publikationsportal JuSER

Please use the identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14067 in citations.
Please use the identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/13882 in citations.

The terrestrial vegetation emits large amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOC) into the atmosphere, which on oxidation produce secondary organic aerosol (SOA). By acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), SOA influences cloud formation and climate. In a warming climate, changes in environmental factors can cause stresses to plants, inducing changes of the emitted VOC. These can modify particle size and composition. Here we report how induced emissions eventually affect CCN activity of SOA, a key parameter in cloud formation. For boreal forest tree species, insect infestation by aphids causes additional VOC emissions which modifies SOA composition thus hygroscopicity and CCN activity. Moderate heat increases the total amount of constitutive VOC, which has a minor effect on hygroscopicity, but affects CCN activity by increasing the particles’ size. The coupling of plant stresses, VOC composition and CCN activity points to an important impact of induced plant emissions on cloud formation and climate.