Latest Mineral dust Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have demonstrated for the first time that dust and other aerosols from one part of the world can influence rainfall in regions thousands of miles away. The study is part of the CalWater field campaign – an initiative funded by the California Energy Commission and designed to help states in the western US...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and university scientists have made the first measurement-based estimate of the amount and composition of tiny airborne particles that arrive in the air over North America each year. With a 3-D view of the atmosphere now possible from satellites, the scientists calculated that dust, not pollution, is the main ingredient of these imports. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) According to a new analysis...

[ Watch the Video ] Researchers analyze dust concentrations and their effects off southern Iceland A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led study shows a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting. The dust is both accelerating glacial melting and contributing important nutrients to the surrounding North Atlantic Ocean. The results provide new insights on the role of dust in climate change and high-latitude ocean ecosystems....

New information on the role of insoluble dust particles in forming cloud droplets could improve the accuracy of regional climate models, especially in areas of the world that have significant amounts of mineral aerosols in the atmosphere. A more accurate accounting for the role of these particles could also have implications for global climate models. Cloud properties can have a significant impact on climate, yet the effects of aerosols like dust is one of the more uncertain components of...

Climatologists have known for decades that airborne particles called aerosols can have a powerful impact on the climate. However, pinpointing the magnitude of the effect has proven challenging because of difficulties associated with measuring the particles on a global scale.Soon a new NASA satellite -- Glory -- should help scientists collect the data needed to provide firmer answers about the important particles. In California, engineers and technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base are...

Spanish and American researchers have conducted a mineralogical and chemical analysis to ascertain the origin of "terra rossa" soil in the Mediterranean. The results of the study reveal that mineral dust from the African regions of the Sahara and Sahel, which emit between 600 and 700 tons of dust a year, brought about the reddish soil in Mediterranean regions such as Mallorca and Sardinia between 12,000 and 25,000 years ago."The first hint of the relationship between African...

Using data from several research satellites, scientists will spend the next three years trying to understand the climate impacts of about 770 million tons of dust carried into the atmosphere every year from the Sahara Desert.Some Saharan dust falls back to Earth before it leaves Africa. Some of it streams out over the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea, carried on the wind as far away as South America and the southeastern U.S. All of it has an as-yet unmeasured impact on Earth's energy...

Dust has been blowing into the Eastern Atlantic Ocean from Africa's Saharan Desert, and a NASA satellite captured some of that dust east of Tropical Storm Julia.NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Julia on Sept. 18 at 13:50 UTC (9:50 a.m. EDT) and noticed a large area of Saharan dust over the Atlantic Ocean, to Julia's east.On Sept. 20 at 5 a.m. EDT, Julia was still holding on to tropical...

Inputs of dust from the Sahara desert could change the composition of microbial communities in the (sub)tropical eastern North Atlantic say Southampton researchers writing this month in the journal FEMS Microbiology Letters.When high winds blow over the Sahara, dust particles consisting of soil particles are lifted high into the atmosphere, blown over the sea, and then deposited on the ocean surface."Desert dust particles contain nutrients such as iron that can boost the production of...

The air we breathe doesn't always come from our own backyard. In fact, sometimes it doesn't even come from our neighbors.On April 22, 2010, a NASA satellite captured the appearance of a large dust cloud over the eastern coast of United States that originated on the other side of the world -- in China."Dust can stimulate the production of more clouds, altering local weather and potentially the climate," said Zhoayan Liu, a researcher at the National Institute of Aerospace and NASA's...