Ocean Interactions
Ocean and Atmosphere connecting Scientists, Teachers & Students

January 24, 2005 (Monday)

Daily Journal Entries : Judy | Paquita

New Discoveries and Global Warming

One thing my students will be keenly interested in hearing about is what I discovered about salt. One favorite student-question I get each year is: "Mrs. Malley, if clouds form over the ocean why don't they rain salt water?" An excellent question, and our textbook speaks to this issue and describes the process of condensation and mentions a point about salt. Simply put, the text book states the salt molecule is too "large" and stays behind when the water changes from liquid to gaseous state. However, this IS NOT THE CASE! Jorgen Jensen explained to me that actually salt from ocean sea spray does make it into the atmosphere and it does contribute to the pool of possible condensation nuclei. However, the salt is such a tiny, tiny particle (parts per billion and smaller) that as the water continues to condense and coalesce around the salt, it becomes highly diluted. Therefore you still have clouds that form over the ocean that produce fresh water rain! Jorgen also told me that one finding from the mission that has surprised him is that the amount of atmospheric salt has less to do with the wind, and more to do with the wave action.

In discussions with many scientists I've discovered some other fascinating things. Did you know that the usually harmful CO2 produced mostly on land is actually converted into calcium by certain algae blooms? They use the converted calcium to manufacture the structure of their bodies. The discussion of CO2 led us to the topic of global warming. I've found on this trip that there is great concern about the issue of global warming, and yet the scientists don't agree on all the issues. What most do agree on is that it is not a topic to take lightly, and that further research into global warming is still needed.

  - Judy