Since the mid-1800s, stormy winds have increasingly been blowing dust from Earth’s deserts into our air. New data show that this increase hides 8 percent of current global warming. Using satellite data and ground-based measurements, the researchers found a steady increase in these microscopic particles in the air since 1850. Soil dust in ice cores, ocean sediments, and peat bogs shows that the level of mineral dust in the atmosphere increased by about 55 percent during this time.
These dust particles have an overall cooling effect by scattering sunlight back into space and breaking up high-altitude clouds that can act as a blanket to trap warmer air below, essentially masking the true extent of the additional heat energy available vibrating around our atmosphere.
Atmospheric physicist Jasper Kok of the University of California, Los Angeles explains that this amount of dust would reduce warming by about 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Without dust, our warming today would be 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius).
“We show that dust in the desert is increasing and likely somewhat inhibits greenhouse warming, which is not present in current climate models,” Kok says. “The increase in dust hasn’t caused much cooling – climate models are still close – but our findings suggest that greenhouse gases alone may be causing more climate warming than currently predicted models.”
Higher wind speeds, drier soils, and changes in human land use all affect the amount of dust that enters our atmosphere. Some of this ends up in our oceans by feeding essential nutrients like iron to photosynthetic plankton, which takes up carbon as they grow and multiply.
This complex cycle of desert dust has not yet been accounted for in our climate models, and it is still unclear whether the number of desert air particles will increase or decrease in the future.
“By adding the increase in desert dust, which accounts for more than half the mass of particulate matter in the atmosphere, we can improve the accuracy of climate model predictions,” says Kok. “This is crucial because better forecasts can make better decisions about how to mitigate or adapt to climate change.” Source
Source: Port Altele
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