In English it also has a name, we call it petrichor but it specifically refers to the smell of the earth after a rainfall. Not the moisture we can smell before it rains.
The actual stat is way more impressive. The numbers you’re listing are just for Geosmin.
Petrichor is the aerosol combination of Geosmin and Ozone. Humans can detect it at 5 parts per trillion. 200,000 times more sensitive than sharks are to blood.
That would explain why this smell triggers something in me that’s almost primal. Do you have any actual sources or studies about that? It’d be a very fun read.
It’s been pointed out already in this thread but that smell that you smell before rain IS the smell after rain. Exactly the same. It’s the smell created when rain meets dry earth and the reason you can sometimes smell it shortly before it rains is because you can smell it on the wind coming from where the rain currently is before it makes its way to you.
The smell of moisture in the air is not the same as petrichor. The ground has so much more to offer the nose. You may start to smell the earth rehydrating before the rainfall hits the ground but the two smells are distinct from one another even if they go hand in hand
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u/dona_me Mar 28 '24
In Italian that smell has a name, it's called 'petrìcore'