Satellites showing that nature is responsible for 90 per cent of the Earth’s atmospheric acidity shocked researchers from the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, whose findings have just been published in the journal.
Stunned, the scientists approached an Australian team to confirm what satellite readings were telling them. By providing data from a ground-based solar Fourier transform spectrometer instrument at the University of Wollongong, the researchers used 15 years worth of information to verify the satellite’s story: all existing global models had substantially misjudged the main source of formic acid levels on earth – its forests.
Dr Clare Murphy, Centre of Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Wollongong
Nature Geoscience; http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW117161.html