Bubble collisions underwater may create tiny droplets in sea spray

Very tiny droplets in sea spray can have a big impact on the atmosphere by helping seed clouds – and there is now a new way to explain how they form in such large numbers.

Researchers have long known that sea spray droplets less than a micrometre across – known as submicron drops – are created in large numbers by roiling seas, but they have not been able to explain how or why.

Xiaofei Wang at Fudan University in China and his colleagues discovered that the answer …