The CLAW hypothesis: a review of the major developments

Abstract

Environmental context. Understanding the role of clouds in the warming and the cooling of the planet and how that role alters in a warming world is one of the biggest uncertainties climate change researchers face. Important in this regard is the influence on cloud properties of cloud condensation nuclei, the tiny atmospheric particles necessary for the nucleation of every single cloud droplet. The anthropogenic contribution to cloud condensation nuclei is known to be large in some regions through knowledge of pollutant emissions; however, the natural processes that regulate cloud condensation nuclei over large parts of the globe are less well understood. The CLAW hypothesis provides a mechanism by which plankton may modify climate through the atmospheric sulfur cycle via the provision of sulfate cloud condensation nuclei. The CLAW hypothesis was published over 20 years ago and has stimulated a great deal of research. Abstract. The CLAW hypothesis has for 20 years provided the intriguing prospect of oceanic and atmospheric systems exhibiting in an intimately coupled way a capacity to react to changing climate in a manner that opposes the change. A great number of quality scientific papers has resulted, many confirming details of specific links between oceanic phytoplankton and dimethylsulfide (DMS) emission to the atmosphere, the importance of DMS oxidation products in regulation of marine atmospheric cloud condensation nucleus (CCN) populations, and a concomitant influence on marine stratocumulus cloud properties. However, despite various links in the proposed phytoplankton–DMS–CCN–cloud albedo climate feedback loop being affirmed, there has been no overall scientific synthesis capable of adequately testing the hypothesis at a global scale. Moreover, significant gaps and contradictions remain, such as a lack of quantitative understanding of new particle formation processes in the marine atmospheric boundary layer, and of the extent to which dynamical, rather than microphysical, cloud feedbacks exist. Nevertheless, considerable progress has been made in understanding ‘Earth System Science’ involving the integration of ocean and atmospheric systems inherent in the CLAW hypothesis. We present here a short review of this progress since the publication of the CLAW hypothesis.