New research out today in Nature Communications helps explain recent surges in global warming. The study, led by Knut von Salzen, Professor Sarah Doherty, and Professor Robert Wood, shows that reducing air pollution has inadvertently diminished the brightness of marine clouds, which are key regulators of global temperature.

Between 2003 and 2022, clouds over the Northeastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans, both sites of rapid surface warming, became nearly 3% less reflective per decade. Researchers attribute approximately 70% of this change to aerosols — fine particles that float through the atmosphere and influence both cloud cover and cloud composition.

Read more about it on UW News.