A new study by MIT reveals light plays a crucial role, impacting everything from cloud cover to desalination.
The photomolecular effect could explain a long-standing discrepancy in climate science – the observed higher absorption of sunlight by clouds than conventional models predict.For millennia, humans have observed and utilized evaporation, the process by which water transforms from a liquid to a vapor. From witnessing the sun’s dry morning fog to extracting salt from evaporated seawater, this fundamental process has been a constant presence.
The researchers meticulously conducted a series of experiments to validate this surprising phenomenon. They employed fourteen different tests and measurements, observing consistent evidence of light-induced evaporation across various conditions—notably, a key indicator involved measuring the air temperature above the water during evaporation under visible light. Instead of rising, the temperature plateaued, demonstrating that thermal energy wasn’t the cause.
The photomolecular effect could explain a long-standing discrepancy in climate science – the observed higher absorption of sunlight by clouds than conventional models predict. This discrepancy has been a subject of debate due to the complexity of cloud measurements. Chen suggests the newly discovered mechanism might account for this excess absorption, potentially improving cloud-related climate calculations.
” However, due to the complexity of clouds and the difficulties of making such measurements, researchers have been debating whether such discrepancies are real or not. And what we discovered suggests that hey, there’s another mechanism for cloud absorption, which was not accounted for, and this mechanism might explain the discrepancies,” Chen adds.
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