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We are writing as experts in how natural and human-made particles interact with clouds over the
Arctic. There remain very large uncertainties in aerosol-cloud interactions and their global impacts,
both now and in the future. Despite these uncertainties, building on recent work of colleagues and
members of QuIESCENT (see Zamora et al., 2025), several key points are clear:
1. Rapid Arctic Warming: The Arctic is experiencing accelerated warming. This warming has the
potential for large effects on the entire planet, potentially altering weather patterns outside the
Arctic due to feedback mechanisms like albedo changes from melting sea ice, greenhouse gases
released from permafrost, and disrupted ecosystems.
2. Temperature and Aerosols Affect Clouds and Cloud Radiative Effects: Arctic clouds are
highly sensitive to temperature increases, leading to changes where ice particles in clouds
transform into liquid droplets. This change in turn can impact surface warming and the processes
listed in #1 above. Arctic clouds are also sensitive to the amount of cloud-active aerosols.
Sources of these aerosols may rise in the future from smoke from more frequent wildfires,
anthropogenic emissions from increased shipping and human activity in the North, marine
emissions enabled by reduced sea ice cover, and enhanced local dust emissions from receding
glaciers.
3. Feedbacks are Not Well Known, and Depend on Emission Reductions: How changing
temperatures and aerosol will impact warming and environmental feedbacks are poorly
understood. However, the extent of these impacts does depend on the degree of fossil fuel
emission reductions. When making policy decisions, we urge global leaders to consider the
potentially large global impacts and the large uncertainties we have surrounding potential
feedback loops discussed in point #1.
4. Climate Intervention Requires More Research and Cannot Solve the Problem Alone: More
research is starting to be conducted to explore ideas for leveraging the radiative influence of
clouds and aerosols for potential climate intervention, known as "climate engineering" or
"radiation management." These include thinning wintertime mixed-phase clouds over polar
regions to enhance longwave cooling and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) to reflect solar
radiation. The effectiveness and unintended consequences of these approaches are not well
understood. Significant scientific review is still needed, as is engaging local communities early in
these discussions. Importantly, these interventions will be at best short-term and partial solutions
and, based on our limited knowledge, may even be counterproductive. We emphasize that they
cannot replace the impact of large-scale fossil fuel reductions.
Sincerely,
QuIESCENT co-leads and steering committee members:
Lauren Zamora
Associate Research Scientist
University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A
Imogen Wadlow
Ph.D. Student
University of Leeds, U.K.
Radiance Calmer
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland
Quentin Coopman
Associate Professor
Université de Lille, France
Note: These opinions are our own and do not necessarily represent those of our institutions.
Reference: Zamora L., G. Sotiropoulou, G. de Boer, R. Calmer, J. Raut and I. Wadlow. 2025.
"Future Directions for Aerosol–Cloud–Precipitation Interaction Research in the Arctic from the QuIESCENT
2024 Workshop." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 106 (5): E829-E835.
https://doi.org/10.1175/bams-d-25-0051.1.
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