The Criegee biradicals — named after Rudolph Criegee, who postulated their existence in the 1950′s — turn out to react with pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, much more rapidly than expected to form sulphates and nitrates. “These compounds,” Science Daily explains, “will lead to aerosol formation and ultimately to cloud formation with the potential to cool the planet.”
One of the authors of the paper describing the discovery, Dr. Carl Percival of the University of Manchester, believes that the results “have a significant impact on our understanding of the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere and have wide ranging implications for pollution and climate change.” He notes that since the compounds which form these molecules are organic in origin, it may mean that “the ecosystem is negating climate change more efficiently than we thought it was.”
—Muriel Kane.
