A plankton bloom following ocean currents off Patagonia in December 2010.
NASA
A plankton bloom following ocean currents off Patagonia in December 2010.

Nobody knows what our skies looked like before fossil fuel burning began; today, about half the cloud droplets in Northern Hemisphere skies formed around particles of pollution. Cloudy skies help regulate our planet’s climate and yet the answers to many fundamental questions about cloud formation remain hazy.

New research led by the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory suggest tiny ocean life in vast stretches of the Southern Ocean play a significant role in generating brighter clouds overhead. The results were published July 17 in the online, open-access journal Science Advances.

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