This is scientific American's 60 second science. I'm Christopher in Tagyatta.

Summertime in India can be unbearably hot.

And the first thing you want, get me some clouds.

That they cool now.

Sudep Chakarbori grew up there in Kolkata,

where he developed a childhood fascination with clouds.

And in like three or four months during months on time, it's like, you know, rain, rain all rain.

But I like the clouds, the rain, their strength they have, their importance.

It's something like I love them, you know.

His love of water vapor led him to study clouds as a climate scientist at UC Davis.

Clouds he says are built of tiny aerosol particles of dust or pollution from fossil fuel

burning that suck up water vapor.

Now this cloud particle with time they combine with each other and become big and when they become big due to gravity they fall out and

we call it a rain.

Chakrabortis studied that process in large thunderstorm systems over the tropics,

using data from geostationary and circumpolar

satellites. And he found that when more aerosols seed the air, like in places with

lots of industrial or agricultural pollution, the same amount of water vapor gets absorbed by a larger number

of aerosols, meaning tinier than usual cloud particle size.

That's important because...

It makes the cloud bigger and larger and stronger and live longer.

Three to 24 hours longer.

...