Podcast: Plants and the climate

MEDIA

Paasonen spoke to Vienna radio station FM4: Reality Check radio show about new findings on climate feedbacks.

Download Pauli Paasonen on Radio FM4 [mp3, 2,970.1 kb]

As temperatures warm, plants release gases that help form clouds and cool the atmosphere, according to research from IIASA and the University of Helsinki. 

The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, identified a negative feedback loop in which higher temperatures lead to an increase in concentrations of natural aerosols that have a cooling effect on the atmosphere. The effect is small, however, countering only about 1% of global temperature rise.

IIASA and University of Helsinki researcher Pauli Paasonen led the study. He says, “Plants, by reacting to changes in temperature, also moderate these changes." Read the full story.

About the speaker

Pauli Paasonen is a Guest Research Scholar from the University of Helsinki (Finland), working at IIASA with the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program. He completed his PhD in aerosol physics at the University of Helsinki in 2012. His work has been related to the initial steps of atmospheric new particle formation, to the growth of these particles in the atmosphere, and to the roles of natural and anthropogenic aerosols in cloud formation processes.