About This Project

We know that neutrons can freeze supercooled water. We know that there are many more cosmogenic neutrons incident at the poles than at the equator. We know that there is insufficient dust and aerosols in the atmosphere at the poles to account for the numbers of ice particles seen in clouds. Perhaps neutrons are the cause and if so cloud microphysics will make a large breakthrough and climate models will need adjustment.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The IPCC reports note that we don't know how ice clouds form at high latitudes, as there seems to be insufficient dust and minerals to account for the nucleation seen. A few years ago, my colleagues and I at The University at Albany, NY showed that neutrons can nucleate deeply supercooled water. We suspect that cosmogenic neutrons (from muons) do in fact cause the nucleation of water droplets in clouds at high latitudes.

If so, climate models can be re-written and become more accurate.

What is the significance of this project?

Climate models are becoming critical as the world warms. They suffer in some ways, including the lack of understanding of how clouds freeze and what causes the ice nucleation. Modelers around the world have to gloss over the lack of data around dust and minerals and biologics found in the atmosphere at high latitudes, where the levels of these ice nucleators are too low to explain the observed levels of ice in the clouds.

A new avenue is needed and we believe that neutrons are that source.

What are the goals of the project?

To show that heterogeneous nucleation of deeply supercooled water (on a given sample) is different at 70 plus North latitude than at lower latitudes. if we can conclusively show this, other will re-examine historical data and any anomalies to see if the high neutron flux may have been the cause in those instances. Further, other groups can, and will, readily be able to enumerate the neutron flux and match it to the observed ice cloud nucleation levels.