The Atlantic
Tiny iodine particles are clumping together to trap sunlight and melt polar sea ice.
Christian Vorhofer/ imageBROKER / Alamy
To climate scientists, clouds are powerful, pillowy paradoxes. They can reflect away the sun’s heat but also trap it in the atmosphere; they can be products of warming temperatures but can also amplify their effects. Now, while studying the atmospheric chemistry that produces clouds, researchers have uncovered an unexpectedly potent natural process that seeds their growth. And as the Earth continues to warm from rising levels of greenhouse gases, this process could be a major new mechanism for accelerating the loss of sea ice at the poles one that no global climate model currently incorporates.