Large amounts of dust particles from the Sahara desert were found at a distance of up to 3,500 kilometers in the Caribbean, which could be contributing to global warming, according to a study conducted by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. (NIOZ) and recently published in the journal Science Advances.
The dust affects the delicate balance between incoming sunlight and heat emitted from the Earth, the development of tropical cyclones and the formation of clouds. The winds transport dust particles from the west of the Sahara to the Atlantic Ocean.
The researchers collected samples of that dust in floating buoys and underwater sediment traps in five places in the Atlantic Ocean, between 2013 and 2016.
"The existing ideas do not conceive that such massive particles travel in the atmosphere at such long distances, which suggests that there is an atmospheric process, or a combination of still unknown processes, that keeps them in the air," explained one of the authors of the study. study, Giles Harrison, quoted by the scientific portal Phys.org.
"This evidence that dust and ash are transported that far is significant, because those particles influence the transfer of radiation around the Earth and the carbon cycles in the oceans," Harrison added.
The role of large particles is underestimated. In addition, the size of the found patrols is 0.45 millimeters in diameter, which means that they are almost 50 times larger than scientists thought it was possible to transport at such a distance through global winds.
The authors of the study argued that this indicates that the role of large dust particles, especially quartz, both in the formation of clouds and in the carbon cycle in the oceans, has been underestimated.
According to the researchers, the role they play in the atmosphere, with its unexpected long-range effects, should be included in future climate models.
The study also suggests that the amount of dust removed from the atmosphere by rain, and not by gravity, is greater than previously assumed. This has implications for the oceans, since the droplets formed by the dust particles are very acidic. In addition, large particles sink faster, bringing nutrients to the deepest parts of the ocean. Both factors affect the growth of algae and, therefore, food chains and the carbon cycle in the ocean.
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