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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Wildfire smoke creates brighter clouds — and weather changes

Data from research flights through smoke plumes show that tiny particulates affect cloud droplet formation.
Firefighters are seen with a firetruck in the foreground while smoke rises into the sky in the background

Firefighters battle the Mendocino Complex Fire in California in 2018. Data from this and other blazes suggest that wildfire smoke could brighten clouds. Credit: Noah Berger/AFP/Getty

Smoke from wildfires in the western United States causes water molecules in the atmosphere to form large numbers of small droplets inside clouds, brightening the clouds and potentially affecting local weather and climate.

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Nature 596, 167 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02105-5

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