The global climate is a complex system - something that isn't simply controlled by the concentration of a single greenhouse gas or one type of cloud in the sky. Researchers have completed a study on the effects of aerosol layers and their influence on cloud formation, a key parameter in understanding and controlling local climate. If you're a mad scientist bent on global weather domination, start taking notes now.

The formation of a cloud and its resulting characteristics can be rather complicated, but understanding the variables at work is important to interpreting any experimental data that about cloud cover that we obtain. The concentration of water vapor in the air plays a role, and that is driven by evaporation, and thus the heating of the Earth's surface. The vapor won't spontaneously form a cloud, so the concentration of pollutants like smoke, dust, and other aerosol particles that serve as sites to nucleate condensation will also play an active roll in a cloud development. Of course, the particles themselves will absorb and reflect solar radiation depending on their composition, concentration, and the thickness of the layer of the atmosphere that contains them, as well. Clouds will reflect the sun's radiation too, causing a cooling effect (as this Seattle-based author is acutely aware of).

Using the relatively consistent atmosphere of the Amazon during the dry season, researchers characterized the interactions between these different cloud formation effects. By taking into account the percentage of the sky already covered in clouds, the depth of optical effects in the aerosol layer, and the previously identified logarithmic dependence of cloud formation on aerosol concentration, the observed cloud patterns could be reproduced by modeling.

The initial concentration of clouds was a major factor in determining how the aerosol layer would effect further cloud development. An already cloudy sky could be coerced to remain overcast longer due mainly to the physical interactions between the particles and the vapor. A nearly cloudless sky, however, could be forced to remain cloudless by the aerosol layer's effects on how solar radiation is distributed through the atmosphere and to the Earth's surface.

In the end, this will help the development of predictive cloud models and the science of controlling precipitation patterns. While some will be on the look out for further atmospheric sciences news, I will be on the look out for people buying cans of aerosol air freshener in bulk, preparing an armada of weather balloons and cackling maniacally.