Vanishing ocean smell could also mean fewer clouds

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/news/vanishing-ocean-smell-could-also-mean-fewer-clouds/

?w=250&h=165
Open your eyes: The clouds are disappearing, too.

Next time you’re at the beach take a deep, long sniff: That special coastal scent might not last forever. While you’re at it, put on some extra sunscreen: As that smell dwindles, cloud cover could, too.

The unique oceanside smell that flows over your olfactory organs is loaded with sulfur — dimethylsulfide, to be exact, or DMS. It’s produced when phytoplankton decompose. And it’s a fragrant compound that’s as special as it smells: In the atmosphere it reacts to produce sulfuric acid, which aids in the formation of clouds.

But it’s a smell that’s endangered by climate change. Experiments have linked the rising acidity of the world’s oceans to falling levels of DMS. A paper published online Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change warns that ocean acidification could reduce DMS emissions by about one-sixth in 2100 compared with pre-industrial levels.

Clouds do more for us than just dispense quenching rain and snow: They also reflect light and heat away from the earth, helping to keep temperatures down.

[Politicalboi]

1. When the oceans die

We die.

[woodsprite]

2. My family went to the beach this weekend

in Delaware. I made the comment to hubby that it just
didn't smell like the beach. Here I was blaming it on being
Delaware.

[Dustlawyer]

3. The phytoplankton produce 90% of the world's oxygen so lack of clouds may be the least of our

worries.

[pa28]

6. Agreed. The reality here is that the oceans are dying and the result is going to be ugly.

[truedelphi]

7. That is so very right.

And there is no where to go to escape what is going on.

Climate nightmare would be more appropriate than "Change" or the other words used.

[abelenkpe]

4. Beach has been fogged in all summer

And here I was complaining. About to stomp out the door and appreciate it today. This is not good. The world really needs to get together and do more to curb pollution and counter global warming. What are we waiting for?!

[CRH]

5. This an interesting observation, ...

this article says the clouds are disappearing. However many other articles say the largest GHG, water vapor is in positive feed back which produces more clouds as more water is stored in the atmosphere. This feedback is said to be temperature driven and contributes to further warming because of the heat trapping green house effect. In counter point, the OP article says the albedo effect of increased clouds is a cooling influence or negative feedback, that the clouds reflect light and heat back out into space.

So on one hand, the clouds trap heat from escaping, on the other hand they reflect incoming light and heat back into space. I guess the obvious question is, which is dominate in effect, the heat trapping or heat reflecting qualities of clouds?

Everything I have read indicates the overall effect of increased water vapor, (clouds), is a positive feedback to the global heating phenomenon.

[kestrel91316]

8. We don't seem to have as much of that "rain" smell as it starts to rain, either.

At least here in SoCal. I wonder which soil microbe that causes that that we are wiping out now..........

[xchrom]

9. We don't seem to have that here in NC either.

Seems to me you could always smell rain before it came.