A The occurrence of a rare phenomenon known as ‘industrial snowfall’ was recorded by meteorological scientists in the United Kingdom, after studying the presence of snow in sparse areas in the Surrey region near Heathrow Airport in January.
Satellite images released by a study show three bands of snow near industrial areas southeast of the airport. Snowfall was recorded on January 23 this year.
According to Julian Mayes, an independent expert who signed off on the study, “the only explanation” is that the snowfall was caused by pollution.
The Guardian explains that industrial snowfall can occur when moisture in the air condenses around tiny particles of pollution, forming snowflakes. Very specific conditions are required and only five cases have been recorded by scientists in the country.
“It started like any frosty morning. I realized it was more than freezing,” the scientist said, recalling the snow he found in West Molesey, Surrey. What alarmed Mayes was that other than the dry appearance of the snow, none of the forecast indicated snow that day. A colleague alerted him to the satellite images.
Professor Giles Harrison, from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, who was not involved in the study, agrees that it is “highly unlikely” that snow formed in such a general way because of the state of the air and the way it is. According to the images that have emerged, it has spread to the southwest.
Mays also argues that other factors on the ground may have contributed to the pollution from the company and airport, such as the release of ice into the air after planes took off and landed at Heathrow. Air pollution and carbon dioxide helped create the chemical cocktail that led to this phenomenon.
Harrison, who previously presented a study of industrial ice in 2009, says the episode was “special” and surprising. However, the meteorologist emphasized that this phenomenon will become even rarer in the United Kingdom, considering another effect of pollution: the increase in atmospheric temperature due to the climate crisis will make snowfall increasingly rare. , including nearby countries. Poles.
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