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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Understanding cloud droplet formation
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-06-12 19:00:00
	Description:		It turns out that clouds can’t be explained by your typical school science fair experiment. Recent research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has identified a new mechanism behind the not-so-fluffy science of cloud droplet formation. Cloud droplets in the atmosphere never form from pure water but require a seed, or a small aerosolized particle that may originate anywhere from ocean sea spray to diesel combustion. Physical chemist Kevin Wilson and his team found that the size of a droplet depends on the particle’s interaction with water, rather than its ability to dissolve. "What we found is that, unlike conventional thinking, organic molecules are actually, rather than dissolving in the bulk of the droplet to facilitate droplet formation, they reside at the surface of the cloud droplet. And their main mechanism for forming cloud droplets is lowering of surface tension." Given the important effects of clouds on the atmosphere, Wilson hopes these findings will improve the accuracy of climate change models.
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