Swept from Africa to the Amazon (preview)

Feature Articles | Energy & Sustainability See Inside

What the journey of a handful of dust tells us about our fragile planet

By Jeffrey Bartholet ?| February 6, 2012

BLOWING IN THE WIND: A plume of Saharan dust extends westward to the Canary Islands. Image: Courtesy of Jacques Descloitres rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Modis Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

In Brief

• Although scientists have devoted much study to pollution, for many years they neglected the interrelatedness of natural dust and the atmosphere. Recently they have come to appreciate how dust influences climate and cloud formation?and the fertilization of oceans and rain forests.
• Despite much research, the effect of dust on the atmosphere is complex and poorly understood. Even the best supercomputers running the most sophisticated models do not provide a good picture.

The Bodele depression at the southern edge of the Sahara is a fearsome, forsaken place. Winds howl through the nearby Tebesti Mountains and Ennedi Plateau, picking up speed as they funnel into a parched wasteland nearly the size of California. Once there was a massive freshwater lake here. Now the lake is a shrunken puddle of its former self. Across most of the landscape, there is nothing.

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