{ "abstract": "Dimethyl sulfide (DMS; CH 3 SCH 3 ) from marine phytoplankton is a notable source of atmospheric sulfur 1 . Its oxidation products include sulfuric acid (SA; H 2 SO 4 ) and methanesulfonic acid (MSA; CH 3 SO 3 H), which has a higher yield than SA below 10 °C (ref. 2 ). Although SA is known to drive the formation of new particles 3 , which may subsequently grow and act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), the role of MSA remains unclear 4 . Here, in experiments performed under atmospheric conditions at the CERN CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) chamber, we show that MSA nucleates together with ammonia (NH 3 ) below −10 °C, at rates comparable with SA-NH 3 . Moreover, MSA and SA nucleate synergistically below −10 °C, forming multi-acid molecular clusters with NH 3 . Even at ultralow NH 3 levels, MSA drives particle growth at or near the kinetic limit below 9 °C and above 40% relative humidity (RH). Because MSA and SA generally coexist at similar concentrations in cool marine regions, our findings indicate that nucleation rates may be accelerated up to tenfold and growth rates up to twofold compared with SA-NH3 alone. Our global model simulations indicate that MSA can enhance CCN concentrations, especially in polar regions. We propose that MSA might be an important driver of biogenic particles in cool, pristine marine regions of both the present-day and pre-industrial atmospheres and yet is unaccounted for in global climate models 5 .", "abstract_shown": true, "affiliations": [ "Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C), The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus", "Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research/Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland", "Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland", "Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany", "Atmospheric Chemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany", "Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA", "Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA", "Department of the Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA", "Institute for Ion Physics and Applied Physics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria", "Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland", "Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria", "Institute of Materials Chemistry, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria", "CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, Switzerland", "IONICON Analytik GmbH, Innsbruck, Austria", "Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal", "TOFWERK, Thun, Switzerland", "Department of Chemistry and Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA", "Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation", "Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (National Research University), Moscow, Russian Federation", "Department of Physics, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy", "National Institute of Nuclear Physics, INFN-Genoa, Genoa, Italy", "Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA", "Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland", "Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA", "School of Marine Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Adaptability for Industrial Products, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China", "Beijing Weather Modification Center, Beijing, China", "Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal", "Aerosol Physics Laboratory, Physics Unit, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland", "Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment and Pollution Control, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China" ], "article_type": null, "arxiv": null, "author_total": 82, "authors": [ { "affs": [ 0, 1 ], "name": "Rima Baalbaki", "orcid": "0000-0002-4480-2107" }, { "affs": [ 2, 1 ], "name": "Jiali Shen", "orcid": "0000-0001-8701-7929" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Mario Simon", "orcid": "0000-0002-4900-7460" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Hannah Klebach", "orcid": "0009-0009-7233-6295" }, { "affs": [ 4 ], "name": "Samuel Ruhl", "orcid": "0000-0002-5817-2679" }, { "affs": [ 5, 6 ], "name": "Jenna DeVivo", "orcid": "0009-0003-5097-1008" }, { "affs": [ 7 ], "name": "Mingyi Wang", "orcid": "0000-0001-5782-2513" }, { "affs": [ 8 ], "name": "Wiebke Scholz", "orcid": "0000-0003-2617-620X" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Lubna Dada", "orcid": "0000-0003-1105-9043" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Birte Rörup", "orcid": "0000-0001-8755-9453" }, { "affs": [ 10, 11 ], "name": "Dominik Stolzenburg", "orcid": "0000-0003-1014-1360" }, { "affs": [ 12 ], "name": "Hanna E. Manninen", "orcid": "0000-0002-0419-4020" }, { "affs": [ 12, 10 ], "name": "Eva Sommer", "orcid": "0000-0001-7415-8386" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Lucía Caudillo-Plath" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Guillaume Marie" }, { "affs": [ 8 ], "name": "Martin Friedrich", "orcid": "0000-0002-6195-9413" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Wenjuan Yu", "orcid": "0009-0001-1351-7338" }, { "affs": [ 13 ], "name": "Markus Sebastian Leiminger", "orcid": "0000-0003-3343-5425" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Dina Alfaouri", "orcid": "0000-0002-0215-3786" }, { "affs": [ 14 ], "name": "A. Amorim", "orcid": "0000-0003-0638-2321" }, { "affs": [ 4, 3 ], "name": "Tatjana Müller", "orcid": "0000-0001-6453-9134" }, { "affs": [ 8 ], "name": "H. Beckmann", "orcid": "0009-0007-9685-5757" }, { "affs": [ 13 ], "name": "Moritz Berntheusel" }, { "affs": [ 15 ], "name": "Steffen Bräkling", "orcid": "0000-0001-8600-6777" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Zoé Brasseur", "orcid": "0000-0001-5387-018X" }, { "affs": [ 16 ], "name": "Randall Chiu", "orcid": "0000-0002-9892-2761" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Jonathan Duplissy", "orcid": "0000-0001-8819-0264" }, { "affs": [ 16, 1 ], "name": "Henning Finkenzeller", "orcid": "0000-0002-8349-3714" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Martin Heinritzi", "orcid": "0000-0002-9171-8127" }, { "affs": [ 4 ], "name": "Felix Kunkler", "orcid": "0009-0001-4168-9137" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Houssni Lamkaddam", "orcid": "0000-0001-5166-6353" }, { "affs": [ 5 ], "name": "Brandon Lopez" }, { "affs": [ 5 ], "name": "Naser Mahfouz" }, { "affs": [ 17, 18 ], "name": "В. С. Махмутов", "orcid": "0000-0002-2242-1055" }, { "affs": [ 4 ], "name": "Mònica Martínez", "orcid": "0000-0002-1407-6327" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Ruby Marten", "orcid": "0000-0003-0417-4350" }, { "affs": [ 19, 20 ], "name": "Dario Massabò", "orcid": "0000-0001-7445-0328" }, { "affs": [ 21, 6 ], "name": "Roy L. Mauldin", "orcid": "0000-0002-8569-8561" }, { "affs": [ 8 ], "name": "Bernhard Mentler", "orcid": "0000-0003-3852-0397" }, { "affs": [ 13 ], "name": "Markus Müller", "orcid": "0000-0003-4110-8950" }, { "affs": [ 17 ], "name": "Maxim Philippov", "orcid": "0000-0003-4302-0020" }, { "affs": [ 22 ], "name": "Ana A. Piedehierro", "orcid": "0000-0002-1900-8139" }, { "affs": [ 12, 3 ], "name": "Pedro Rato", "orcid": "0000-0002-5536-8879" }, { "affs": [ 13 ], "name": "Tobias Reinecke", "orcid": "0000-0002-1519-6507" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Sarah Richter", "orcid": "0000-0002-4906-0499" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Douglas M. Russell", "orcid": "0000-0002-1434-247X" }, { "affs": [ 23 ], "name": "Benjamin C. Schulze", "orcid": "0000-0002-6405-8872" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Mihnea Surdu", "orcid": "0000-0003-1815-2750" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Roseline C. Thakur", "orcid": "0000-0002-3238-4171" }, { "affs": [ 24 ], "name": "Yee Jun Tham", "orcid": "0000-0001-7924-5841" }, { "affs": [ 25 ], "name": "Ping Tian", "orcid": "0000-0002-8795-5605" }, { "affs": [ 26 ], "name": "António R. Tomé", "orcid": "0000-0001-9144-7120" }, { "affs": [ 16 ], "name": "Yandong Tong", "orcid": "0000-0003-2304-4850" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Jens Top", "orcid": "0000-0003-3318-4451" }, { "affs": [ 27, 3 ], "name": "Andrea C. Wagner" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "D Y Wang", "orcid": "0000-0002-1667-2237" }, { "affs": [ 28 ], "name": "Yonghong Wang", "orcid": "0000-0003-2498-9143" }, { "affs": [ 23 ], "name": "Ryan X. Ward", "orcid": "0000-0003-2317-3310" }, { "affs": [ 12, 3 ], "name": "S Weber" }, { "affs": [ 22 ], "name": "André Welti", "orcid": "0000-0002-3549-1212" } ], "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/320d97v88x5wb.bib", "cited_by": 7, "doi": "10.1038/s41586-026-10810-2", "fulltext_url": null, "id": "320d97v88x5wb", "issns": [ "0028-0836", "1476-4687" ], "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10810-2", "language": "en", "licence": "CC-BY", "licence_label": "CC BY", "licence_source": "journal", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "metadata_licence": null, "native_subjects": [ [ "openalex", "1902|Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols" ] ], "openalex": "W7165788176", "pdf_url": null, "pmcid": "PMC13421329", "pmid": "42343136", "published": "2026-06-24", "publisher": "Nature Portfolio", "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/320d97v88x5wb.ris", "sources": [ { "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:57Z", "native_id": "W7165788176", "source": "openalex", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10810-2" } ], "subjects": [ { "field": "earth", "origin": "openalex:1902|Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols", "subfield": "atmospheric" } ], "title": "Role of methanesulfonic acid in atmospheric particle nucleation and growth", "title_text": "Role of methanesulfonic acid in atmospheric particle nucleation and growth", "type": "peer-reviewed", "updated_at": "2026-11-08T13:20:53Z", "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/320d97v88x5wb", "venue": "Nature", "versions": [] }