The literature on atmospheric particulate matter (PM), or atmospheric aerosol, has increased enormously over the last 2 decades and amounts now to some 1500–2000 papers per year in the refereed literature. This is in part due to the enormous advances in measurement technologies, which have allowed for an increasingly accurate understanding of the chemical composition and of the physical properties of atmospheric particles and of their processes in the atmosphere. The growing scientific interest in atmospheric aerosol particles is due to their high importance for environmental policy. In fact, particulate matter constitutes one of the most challenging problems both for air quality and for climate change policies. In this context, this paper reviews the most recent results within the atmospheric aerosol sciences and the policy needs, which have driven much of the increase in monitoring and mechanistic research over the last 2 decades. The synthesis reveals many new processes and developments in the science underpinning climate–aerosol interactions and effects of PM on human health and the environment. However, while airborne particulate matter is responsible for globally important influences on premature human mortality, we still do not know the relative importance of the different chemical components of PM for these effects. Likewise, the magnitude of the overall effects of PM on climate remains highly uncertain. Despite the uncertainty there are many things that could be done to mitigate local and global problems of atmospheric PM. Recent analyses have shown that reducing black carbon (BC) emissions, using known control measures, would reduce global warming and delay the time when anthropogenic effects on global temperature would exceed 2 °C. Likewise, cost-effective control measures on ammonia, an important agricultural precursor gas for secondary inorganic aerosols (SIA), would reduce regional eutrophication and PM concentrations in large areas of Europe, China and the USA. Thus, there is much that could be done to reduce the effects of atmospheric PM on the climate and the health of the environment and the human population. A prioritized list of actions to mitigate the full range of effects of PM is currently undeliverable due to shortcomings in the knowledge of aerosol science; among the shortcomings, the roles of PM in global climate and the relative roles of different PM precursor sources and their response to climate and land use change over the remaining decades of this century are prominent. In any case, the evidence from this paper strongly advocates for an integrated approach to air quality and climate policies.

The recently released Collection 5 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol products provide a consistent record of the Earth's aerosol system. Comparing with ground‐based AERONET observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) we find that Collection 5 MODIS aerosol products estimate AOD to within expected accuracy more than 60% of the time over ocean and more than 72% of the time over land. This is similar to previous results for ocean and better than the previous results for land. However, the new collection introduces a 0.015 offset between the Terra and Aqua global mean AOD over ocean, where none existed previously. Aqua conforms to previous values and expectations while Terra is higher than what had been expected. The cause of the offset is unknown, but changes to calibration are a possible explanation. Even though Terra's higher ocean AOD is unexpected and unexplained, we present climatological analyses of data from both sensors. We find that the multiannual global mean AOD at 550 nm over oceans is 0.13 for Aqua and 0.14 for Terra, and over land it is 0.19 in both Aqua and Terra. AOD in situations with 80% cloud fraction are twice the global mean values, although such situations occur only 2% of the time over ocean and less than 1% of the time over land. Aerosol particle size associated with these very cloudy situations does not show a drastic change over ocean, but does over land. Regionally, aerosol amounts vary from polluted areas such as east Asia and India, to the cleanest regions such as Australia and the northern continents. As AOD increases over maritime background conditions, fine mode aerosol dominates over dust over all oceans, except over the tropical Atlantic downwind of the Sahara and during some months over the Arabian Sea.

Invigorating convection in warm clouds: Atmospheric aerosols—tiny airborne particles—affect the way clouds form and how they affect climate. Koren et al. investigated how the formation of warm clouds, such as those that form over the oceans, depends on pollution levels (see the Perspective by Remer). Aerosols affect cloud formation in cleaner air disproportionately more than in more polluted air. Before the widespread air pollution of the industrial era, it seems, warm convective clouds may have covered much less of the oceans than they do today. Science , this issue p. 1143 ; see also p. 1089

Cloud and aerosols interact and form a complex system leading to high uncertainty in understanding climate change. To simplify this non‐linear system it is customary to distinguish between “cloudy” and “cloud‐free” areas and measure them separately. However, we find that clouds are surrounded by a “twilight zone” – a belt of forming and evaporating cloud fragments and hydrated aerosols extending tens of kilometers from the clouds into the so‐called cloud‐free zone. The gradual transition from cloudy to dry atmosphere is proportional to the aerosol loading, suggesting an additional aerosol effect on the composition and radiation fluxes of the atmosphere. Using AERONET data, we find that the measured aerosol optical depth is higher by 13% ± 2% in the visible and 22% ± 2% in the NIR in measurements taken near clouds relative to its value in the measurements taken before or after, and that 30%−60% of the free atmosphere is affected by this phenomenon.

Anthropogenic pollution from marine microplastic particles is a growing concern, both as a source of toxic compounds, and because they can transport pathogens and other pollutants. Airborne microplastic particles were previously observed over terrestrial and coastal locations, but not in the remote ocean. Here, we collected ambient aerosol samples in the North Atlantic Ocean, including the remote marine atmosphere, during the Tara Pacific expedition in May-June 2016, and chemically characterized them using micro-Raman spectroscopy. We detected a range of airborne microplastics, including polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, and poly-silicone compounds. Polyethylene and polypropylene were also found in seawater, suggesting local production of airborne microplastic particles. Terminal velocity estimations and back trajectory analysis support this conclusion. For technical reasons, only particles larger than 5 µm, at the upper end of a typical marine atmospheric size distribution, were analyzed, suggesting that our analyses underestimate the presence of airborne microplastic particles in the remote marine atmosphere.