(Describer) In an animation, streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation.
(Describer) People walk along a beach.
(male narrator)
Nothing refreshes like
a deep breath of ocean air.
But why the salty smell?
It's actually an aerosol:
a fine mist of droplets,
each one packed
with not only salt,
but life from the ocean:
phytoplankton, bacteria,
even viruses.
(female)
We're interested in aerosols
that are produced naturally
or by humans
in the real world.
Aerosols are mixtures,
these really complex mixtures.
(Describer) Water is poured into a tank.
(narrator)
With support from the
National Science Foundation,
atmospheric chemist
Kimberly Prather
at UC San Diego and a team of
scientists around the country
are working to better
understand the role
these marine aerosols play
in weather and climate change.
(female)
The single largest uncertainty
in climate change
is how do aerosols affect
clouds and climate.
(narrator)
At the Center
for Aerosol Impacts
on Climate
and the Environment,
Prather and her team
have pumped sea water
into this hydraulics lab
from the Pacific Ocean
and spiked it
with nutrients to get
tiny, plant-like organisms,
called phytoplankton, to grow.
(Describer) Green bubbles are shown.
(female)
Phytoplankton give us almost
half our oxygen we breathe.
They fix carbon from
the atmosphere, like CO2,
and then they turn it back
into oxygen, just like plants.
So you can think of them
as little forests under water.
The goal of this experiment is
to try and replicate
the complexity of the ocean
in the lab.
(Describer) Water is moved through long tanks.
(narrator)
Prather and company know
that phytoplankton
change the chemistry
of the water.
They want to better understand
how those changes
impact the composition
of sea spray aerosol.
(Describer) Waves crash on rocks.
(female)
Our goal is to understand how
the changes in the sea water
get translated into the changes
in the sea spray,
which then go on and seed
clouds and change our climate.
(narrator)
The team hopes data
from the tank experiments
will lead to improved
computer climate models.
(Describer) Olga Laskina:
(female)
So, we measure
chemical composition.
We can also measure different
properties of these particles.
For example, how they interact
with water.
We need to measure
these properties
in order to incorporate those
into climate models.
(narrator)
Prather co-directs the center
with Vicki Grassian
of the University of Iowa.
(female)
We are learning new things
by having this ocean
in the laboratory.
That allows us
to test hypotheses
that have been entrenched
in people's thinking
and see if they're true
or not.
We have surprises and new ways
of looking at the problem.
(narrator)
With 70% of our earth
covered by water,
Grassian and Prather say
we need to understand
the chemistry
of sea spray aerosols before
we can ever really understand
our changing climate.
And to do that, well,
they're making some waves.
(Describer) A globe turns beside the title.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O'Brien.
