In the Mediterranean, it’s called “Sirocco,” and in the Canary Islands, “La Calima,” while it goes by “Harmattan” in West Africa, and “Haboob” in Sudan. But these varied names all describe the same thing: dust storms.
Sand and dust storms are a global phenomenon. These fine dust particles can be carried by winds across thousands of miles, impacting health and livelihoods.
According to the UN, dust storms have dramatically increased in recent years due to climate change, land degradation and drought.
Climate scientist Natalie Mahowald hopes that by learning more about dust storms, we can plan for the future. An engineering professor at Cornell University in the US, she’s spent the last two decades tracking dust across the globe – and now, is working with NASA on a new instrument called EMIT.
The first-of-its-kind, space-borne imaging spectrometer is helping to map dust colors. Scientists can use the data in their climate models to work out how different minerals heat or cool the planet, explains Mahowald. Each type of dust has its own unique light-reflecting signature: for example, white dust reflects solar radiation, or heat, while “red and the dark dust absorbs it,” she says.
EMIT (the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) will “revolutionize what we can do,” says Mahowald. “We can use that (data) to better understand what the impact of desert dust is.”
A mineral map
Launched in July 2022, EMIT is attached to the International Space Station and orbits the Earth 16 times a day, mapping the mineral composition of the planet’s surface by gathering data on spectra, the different light wavelengths that are emitted by different colors.
A render of NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), which measures visible and infrared light reflecting from the dust and soil.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
This information allows researchers to determine the mineral and chemical composition of substances on the surface. Scanning 50-mile-wide strips in a matter of seconds, the gadget will provide scientists with billions of data points to use in climate model predictions – greatly expanding the current data set which comes from just 5,000 sampling sites, says Mahowald.
Most of the existing data comes from agricultural land, where detailed soil information was valuable for farming and commercial purposes. The wealth of information provided by EMIT, which includes data from the world’s most arid regions, will help scientists learn much more about dust and its impact on climate – an issue which Mahowald says has been largely overlooked until now.
A vicious cycle
The UN estimates that 2,000 million tons of sand and dust are emitted into the atmosphere annually.
Sand and dust storms are vital for the planet, carrying nutritious soils across countries and continents and helping plant life to flourish – for example, dust from the Sahara Desert feeds trees in the Amazon rainforest, where the soil lacks the necessary nutrients.
“Ecosystems actually rely on dust aerosols,” says Diana Francis, a climate scientist at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.
But if dust storms become more frequent and intense, they could accelerate global warming: a report from the UN highlights how changing storm patterns could alter the distribution of Earth’s minerals and reduce rainfall, while dust aerosols can act like greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation.
Tracking dust storms across the world’s largest sand desert
This could create a feedback loop, in which climate change causes more extreme dust storms through land degradation and drought, and dust storms exacerbate climate change. There’s evidence this is already happening, says Francis, pointing to “Godzilla,” the biggest dust storm worldwide in 20 years, which crossed the Atlantic in June 2020, darkening skies from the Caribbean to the US state of Texas.
Dust storms can cause respiratory illnesses, damage livestock and crops, and disrupt transport. In the Middle East and North Africa region, they are estimated to cost the economy $13 billion a year.
And the number and severity of storms in the Sahara Desert is on the rise, says Francis. In some of her earlier research, she found that dust from the Sahara had reached the Arctic, due to changes in atmospheric circulation.
“We noticed that during the last two decades, the darkening of the ice in the Arctic was becoming significant,” says Francis, highlighting another feedback loop. “We know that when the ice is dark it’ll reflect less of the solar light, and therefore it’ll melt faster.”
More than just dust
EMIT has delivered 5,000 data sets so far – each containing over 1.4 million spectra. Scientists at NASA are using the data to help map dust and soil composition across the globe.
But EMIT’s data is also being used to map another factor affecting climate change: methane.
Although it makes up just a fraction of greenhouse gas emissions, methane is estimated to have 80 times more warming power than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it enters the atmosphere.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California assemble components of the EMIT device in December 2021.
NASA
Methane absorbs infrared light in a unique pattern, providing a “spectral fingerprint” that EMIT’s imaging spectrometer can pinpoint precisely. While NASA knew that EMIT’s imaging technology would be able to spot greenhouse gas emissions, it’s performing “better than expected,” says Robert Green, senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the principal investigator on the EMIT mission.
So far, EMIT has spotted 50 “super-emitters” across the world, mostly coming from fossil fuel, waste and agricultural facilities, in locations including the US, Iran and Turkmenistan.
While carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for centuries, methane dissipates after a decade, which means that reducing methane emissions is a fast route to slowing climate change. NASA hopes that this information will encourage countries to stem their methane emissions.
While EMIT’s mission was initially scheduled to last just 12 months, Green says that there are now plans to extend the project.
Mahowald is excited for the future. “The EMIT project is testing the waters, and really showing what is possible,” she says. “We’re going to go from 5,000 to billions of pieces of data, and much higher resolution. That’s going to help us tremendously.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
