Plankton Can Make Clouds To Block UV

NotWallaceStevens writes "This article on Science Daily describes how plankton can create clouds in response to seasonal variations in UV radiation from the sun by producing a chemical called dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP). This was a long term study based on data going back to the 1950s collected in the Sargasso Sea. One of the researches theorizes that the process could slow global warming."

Comments

Re:Does this mean..

[amide_one]

DMS does get oxidized, eventually, to sulfates (i.e., one of the acids in 'acid rain'). Is this important? Depends on how much is being produced this way, obviously, but according to this estimate the overall sulfur emission from oceanic sources (plankton, etc.) is about 20% of the emission from human activities (globally; it's more like 10% in the N. hemisphere, much higher anthropogenic emissions - mostly coal burning).

So the evil death plankton's sunscreen is some kind of factor in acid rain, but not the biggest one.

That's a coincidence.

[CosmeticLobotamy]

I had a roommate in college named Dimethylsulfoniopropionate.

Sometimes I get the feeling all of chemistry is just a put-on to see who can get people to say the silliest word. I mean, how would we know? That, "It's too small to see," stuff seems awfully convenient.

No Super plankton to the rescue

[ianchaos]

Any hope of lessening global warming through plankton activity are about zero. As the oceans are warming the plankton are dying. It may have gone to far to rely on mother nature to help us turn this juggernaught around. And it's not just global warming that is killing the plankton but oceanic pollution as well (info at bottom of article).
Creatures as well as humans have survived through many devistating climate/environmental changes, but these changes took place over hundreds and more often thousands of years. We are at a point where we are seeing major climate change within a single generation. I don't know what the answer to the problem is, and it will undoubtedly take more that one solution to fix this mess, but something had better be done soon or we (as a civilization) are in for a bad hangover.