6. The natural conversion of the warming humid hazes into cooling, high albedo clouds (Walter Jehne)

As outlined in #3 and #5 above much of our abnormal warming has resulted from the warming effect of the enhanced humid hazes micro-droplets which warm the air directly by absorbing incident solar heat while in the liquid phase, and then by absorbing re-radiated infrared heat from the earth via the greenhouse effect while in the gaseous phase, resulting from the initial solar heat absorption.

We need to reduce and remove these humid haze micro-droplets if we are to cool the climate. This is difficult as the micro-droplets are charged and repel each other thereby persisting in the lower air.   Our vastly increased emission of pollutant micro-nuclei has also contributed to their increased levels and persistence as has our impairment of their natural removal processes.

Figure one: Global haze map screenshot for 29.03.20. See the live map at the World Air Quality Index website. The colours at the bottom of the image denote the degree of pollution from green, (low), to brown (hazardous).

We need to better understand and restore these natural removal processes and how to help them.

As the haze micro-droplets are charged and dispersed, we need processes that can overcome this charge repulsion to coalesce them. Three forms of natural precipitation nuclei can do this via their variable hygroscopic coalescence ability. These are; ice crystals, certain salts and particular bacteria.

Most effective are the bacteria which contain highly hygroscopic organic solutes that can coalesce up to a million haze micro-droplets into larger cloud droplets and then dense high albedo clouds.

By coalescing these haze micro-droplets into dense clouds that cover 50% of the planet at any time these hygroscopic precipitation nuclei can rapidly convert the warming humid hazes into high albedo clouds. These can reflect up to 70%, and on average 33%, of the incident solar radiation back out to space to cool the earth by an average of 120 w/m2.

Given we need to cool the climate by 3 w/m2, a 2% increase in cloud albedo reflectance could readily offset our abnormal warming effect.

These two opposing but balanced hydrological warming and cooling effects in the lower atmosphere readily explains how nature could have regulated much of the heat dynamics and balance on Earth for the past billions of years and avoided Earth having a runaway greenhouse effect as on Venus.

Significantly this balance is regulated by the microbial production of two different types of haze micro-nuclei and the highly hygroscopic precipitation nuclei that coalesce and remove these hazes.

Science to date has failed to recognize these dual opposing nuclei and their hydrological processes and effects and assumed that they all operate by increasing water retention in the air as on Venus.

Walter’s explanation of these processes start at about 1.16.15

More on the science: rain-making bacteria

‘Rain-making’ bacteria found around the world from Nature Magazine 28 February 2008

This video claims that rain-making bacteria also originate from the ocean.

More on the science: the albedo effect

The NASA article (that includes this video) Measuring Earth’s Albedo is here.