Call me a zombie, call me dieased, but the plants are getting to me!My throat is sore, my voice is raspy and my skin and eyes are extremely itchy and the antihistimines aren't greatly helping! The sun is out and shining, perfect for photosynthesis and for plants to release their pollen and other bioaerosols. "Bioaerosols?" I hear you cry, "What are they?". Well I guess I can turn my 'plant rant' into a quick geography (or biogeography if you will) lesson, as although I hate them for physically attacking my immune system and being the subject of an upcoming presentation and essay, they are rather useful in the climate.
Ok Bioaersols are aerosols that are biological in origin, here released by plants. Aerosol is the name given to any tiny particulate piece of matter that is floating around in the atmosphere. So what do they do? They can moderate the climate in at least two ways!
1) The Global Dimming effect - this is a theory which says that all the tiny aerosols in the atmosphere act effectively as mirrors for radiation to bounce off and hence reduce the amount of radiation that hits the Earth's surface, hence keeping surface temperatures lower than they would otherwise be.
2) These tiny aerosols can bind with other molecules and can help with cloud formation processes in the atmosphere, which also act as a radiation barrier and aid the hydrological cycle.
Plants of course can do many more amazing things, but these two effects are examples of something bigger- Gaia Theory. Developed by James Lovelock, who informed the world of the dangerous levels of CFC's (chlorofluorocarbon's) in the atmosphere, it proposes the idea that life on Earth acts in a way such that the climate is moderated by biological processes such that it can sustain biological life. Many worry that anthropogenic (human) pressures on the Earth's resources and our power to 'terraform' our planet is a risk to what natural processes have done for the last 4.2 or so billion years.
None of this helps my hayfever though...
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