The maps above show a design of the dust plumes blowing throughout North Africa and into Europe on March 14 and 15. The design was created by the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5), an international atmospheric model that uses mathematical equations to represent physical processes. The full effects of this years storm have yet to be seen however compared to the 2021 event, this storm appears to be carrying more dust than water vapor, Guan said. “The water vapor river over northern Africa does not appear to be particularly strong compared to last years– its an arid area, after all,” he said. “The dust river is likely more extreme.”.
March 15, 2022. (Click image for wide view.).
An atmospheric river brought a plume of Saharan dust to Western Europe, blanketing cities and ski slopes, and degrading air quality.
On March 15, 2022, a plume of Saharan dust was burnt out of North Africa and throughout the Mediterranean into Western Europe. The dust turned skies orange, blanketed cities, impaired air quality, and stained ski slopes.
The plume was driven by an atmospheric river arising from Storm Celia, which brought strong winds, rain, and snow to the Canary Islands. Climatic rivers, generally connected with severe moisture, can likewise carry dust.
By Sara E. Pratt, NASA Earth Observatory
March 18, 2022
” You can consider them as the confluence of a dust river and a water vapor river within a single storm environment,” said Bin Guan, an atmospheric researcher at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles. “The exact same climatic dynamics that generate a water vapor river– specifically strong winds– can act to pick up and transportation dust as the storm crosses desert locations.”.
Over the past four decades, 78 percent of atmospheric rivers over northwestern Africa have actually caused extreme dust events over Europe, according to research by Guan and associates. Such “aerosol atmospheric rivers”– a term recently introduced in a NASA-led study that describes narrow, elongated areas of severe aerosol mass transport– can play an important function in environment and air quality all over the world.
The image above, acquired on March 15 by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 spacecraft, shows the dust plume vacating Algeria and over the Iberian Peninsula. Forecasters from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service showed that the majority of the dust reaching Europe would likely be concentrated over Spain, Portugal, and France, which will see degraded air quality.
March 14– 15, 2022.
The maps above show a design of the dust plumes blowing across North Africa and into Europe on March 14 and 15. The design was generated by the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5), an international climatic model that utilizes mathematical formulas to represent physical procedures. Measurements of physical residential or commercial properties like temperature, wetness, and wind speeds and instructions are regularly folded into the model to keep the simulation as near to observed reality as possible.
Each year, more than 100 million lots of dust blow out of North Africa, lofted from the Sahara Desert by strong seasonal winds. At least a couple of times a year, relentless and strong winds from the south drive Saharan dust north toward Europe.
The dust plays a significant role in Earths climate and biological systems, absorbing and showing solar power and fertilizing ocean ecosystems with iron and other minerals that plants and phytoplankton need to grow.
Such occasions can decrease the amount of sunshine reaching the surface area through reflection and absorption, affect cloud development, and reduce temperatures. Dust can break down air quality and have unfavorable health impacts.
” Besides polluting the air, the dust can darken the snowpack and lead to more fast snowmelt compared to a beautiful atmospheric river,” Guan said.
In a 2021 dust occasion, Guan and coworkers discovered that dust deposition caused snow darkening in the Alps, reducing the reflectance, or albedo, of the snow by 40 percent and warming the surface area. Together, this minimized the snow depth in the Alps by half in less than a month.
The full impacts of this years storm have yet to be seen however compared to the 2021 event, this storm appears to be carrying more dust than water vapor, Guan said. “The water vapor river over northern Africa does not appear to be particularly strong compared to last years– its a dry region, after all,” he stated. “The dust river is likely more intense.”.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, utilizing VIIRS information from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), and GEOS-5 information from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC.