HARROW: Allergies are known to bring pain to many people at a time of the year when pollen comes around. Well, researchers have found out that pollen might have a lot more to do than just give someone a painful experience with an allergic reaction.
Researchers from Texas A&M and the University of Michigan are suggesting that these tiny particles might influence the climate with rain. Since pollen has mostly been ignored due to the fact that more research has been spent on believing that man made aerosols cause pollution, which leads to hotter temperatures and resulting in global warming, the finding that pollen might actually cause rain has been a huge surprise.
Allison Steiner, who is an associate professor of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences from the University of Michigan, said that pollen “grains were thought to be too large to be important in the climate system.” Steiner added that pollen was “too large to form clouds or interact with the sun’s radiation.” Additionally, Steiner said that pollen particles are too large and don’t last in the atmosphere as they settle too quickly.
Steiner in contrast to popular belief that pollen broke into tiny particles whenever it comes into contact with water vapor, said that pollen, instead, absorbs the water and ends up acting like a seed particle for clouds. In other words, through research, it was found that pollen absorbs water vapor from the air and goes up into the atmosphere to eventually gather into clouds and release this absorbed water.
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