NASA data link pollution to rainy summer days in the...( The team used ground-based data from...)

The team used ground-based data from gauges, along with vertical wind speed and cloud height measurements, to help confirm the weekly trend in rainfall observed from space.

To find out if pollution from humans indeed could be responsible for the midweek boost in rainfall, the team analyzed particulate matter, the concentrations of airborne particles associated with pollution, across the U.S. from 1998 to 2005. The data, obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency, showed that pollution tended to peak midweek, mirroring the trend observed in the rainfall data.

"If two things happen at the same time, it doesn't mean one caused the other," Bell said. "But it's well known that particulate matter has the potential to affect how clouds behave, and this kind of evidence makes the argument stronger for a link between pollution and heavier rainfall."

Scientists long have questioned the effect of workweek pollution, such as emissions from traffic, businesses and factories, on weekly weather patterns. Researchers know clouds are "seeded" by particulate matter. Water and ice in clouds grab hold around the particles, forming additional water droplets. Some researchers think increased pollution thwarts rainfall by dispersing the same amount of water over more seeds, preventing them from growing large enough to fall as rain. Still, other studies suggest some factors can override this dispersion effect.

In the Southeast, summertime conditions for large, frequent storms are already in place, a factor that overrides the rain-thwarting dispersion effect. When conditions are poised to form big storms, updrafts carry the smaller, pollution-seeded raindrops high into the atmosphere where they condense and freeze.

"It's the freezing process that gives the storm an extra kick, causing it to grow larger and climb higher into the atmosphere," Bell said. He and his colleagues found that the radar on the TRMM satellite showed that storms
'/>"/>