Effects of dust on climate change

 

Photo credit: Daily Bruin

Jasper Kok, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, is helping elucidate the role dust plays in climate change. He said dust can have either a net cooling or net heating effect on the atmosphere depending on the size of the particles. (Owen Emerson/Daily Bruin senior staff)

Professor works to clear up effects of dust on climate change

BY DEANNA NECULA

Dust in the air can alter climate change in unpredictable ways, according to UCLA researchers.

Jasper Kok, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, published a paper in April detailing how aerosols such as desert dust can cause temperature and precipitation levels to fluctuate, accelerating climate change.

Kok said aerosols, or particles in the air, are important to consider in modeling climate change because the specks can scatter and absorb sunlight like greenhouse gases.

Additionally, aerosols can often act as the scaffolding upon which clouds can condense. Clouds regulate the temperature of the atmosphere by deflecting incoming sunlight or preventing heat from escaping into space.

“I think (studying desert dust) is the coolest because it’s a natural process, but it’s very much affected by human activity,” Kok said.

Kok said the Salton Sea, a saline lake in California’s Coachella Valley, shows how human actions can cause desertification. Changes in land use and irrigation led the Salton Sea to shrink in size, leaving behind a desert-like landscape that stirs dust up into the atmosphere, he said.

As a desert grows, the dust it produces leads to the atmosphere heating up, leading to more desertification and more dust in the air, Kok said.

“The abundance of particles in the atmosphere affects climate, but climate also affects the abundance of particles,” he said.

Kok said he was able to detect the highest concentrations of desert dust in the atmosphere by using satellite imagery. He added graduate students assisted in data collection by venturing into dust storms to measure the emission, size and quality of dust particles.

He said extraneous variables such as soil moisture and human activity can make it difficult to determine the impact of atmospheric dust on climate change.

“What will happen in the future is very unclear,” Kok said. “It depends on many different factors.”

Read the full article: Daily Bruin

Video images of a sand storm in Sudan

 

Go to: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/watch-this-huge-wall-dust-tower-above-sudans-khartoum-turning-sky-blood-red-1624476

Watch this huge wall of dust tower above Sudan’s Khartoum turning the sky blood red

Phenomenon known as a ‘haboob’ left buildings, cars and residents covered in thick blanket of sand.

• 

  By Paul Wright

The sky above the Sudanese capital of Khartoum turned blood red on Thursday (1 June) after a huge dust storm towered above and engulfed the city.

In what looked like a scene from an apocalyptic film, video footage shows a thick wall of dust approaching the city and quickly blanketing its buildings, cars and people.

Soil Erosion, Desertification and Dust Storms

 

Disappearance of topsoil causes desert expansion and crop reduction in regions across the world. – https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/20/6c/2a/206c2ad371d266ecb1bb2a3539ac15a6.jpg

Mother Earth News

How Soil Erosion Contributes to Desertification and Dust Storms

Combating desertification is not fighting against nature, but restoring a respect for it.

 

Dust obscures the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan (2001). Credit: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

3 WAYS YOUR FOOD CHOICES COULD REVERSE DESERTIFICATION

by WANQING ZHOU

On World Day to Combat Desertification (June 17), explore how agriculture has contributed to desertification, how it can help reverse this trend, and what you can do right now.

Eight decades have passed since “black blizzards”—massive dust storms—blocked sunlight and smothered people, animals, and vegetation in the American Great Plains. Due in large part to unsustainable ranching and farming practices, the once-lush pastures of the U.S. Midwest were transformed into a massive Dust Bowl through desertification.Practices similar to the ones that brought the dust storms in the 1930s are still prevalent in the United States and are being adopted by developing countries worldwide. Intensive tilling, over-fertilizing, the destruction of microbes in the soil through the application of pesticides, and continuous grazing are all practices that are spreading.

Some foresee another Dust Bowl returning to the United States. Other regions of the world are struggling with their own crises. Sand storms originating in the desertifying Mongolian Plateau, for example, have been recurring in Northern China for more than 15 years.

The solution, according to natural resource scientists, is simple: cover the soil with plants. Among the most promising paths is regenerative agriculture and ranching—an ecological approach to producing more-sustainable foods, clothing, and fuels while rebuilding ecosystems.

As society deepens its understanding of how systems in nature work as a whole to maximize productivity across ecosystems, agricultural production can shift to mimic “nature’s way” in our own production activities and to allow our broken ecosystems to heal.

“As Africa prospers, will diets improve?”

Photo credit: Google

South Africa’s farms are blowing away in Dust Bowl conditions

Africa: Focus On Poverty – Improving Nutrition Isn’t Just About Science

SciDev.Net

By Roger Williamson

 

EXCERPT

“As Africa prospers, will diets improve?” The media has been pondering this question lately. On the one hand, veteran environmentalist Lester Brown warns that huge dustbowls could leave regions of northern Africa in serious agricultural trouble. [2] On the other, SciDev.Net reports encouraging progress on sweet potato production in Africa. So what do we need to know to make an assessment? Two recent academic studies are useful.

On the verge of retirement, noted environmentalist and celebrated systems analyst Lester Brown has a dire warning for the world – http://www.countercurrents.org/drou-colo-480.jpg

Both books draw out several interesting policy lessons and make clear that scientific research is only one element among many needed to improve people’s diets.

[1] David Leonhardt As Africa prospers, will diets improve? (New Telegraph, 16 February 2015)

[2] Suzanne Goldenberg Lester Brown: ‘Vast dust bowls threaten tens of millions with hunger’ (The Guardian, 25 February 2015)

Read the full article: allAfrica

 

How Saharan Dust Fertilizes Amazon Rainforest

Photo credit: Nature World News

Pictured: A conceptual image of dust from the Saharan Desert crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the Amazon rainforest in South America. (Photo : Conceptual Image Lab, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

By Jenna Iacurci

You would think that the Saharan Desert and Amazon rainforest are worlds apart. The African Sahara is a vast expanse of hot sand and arid air, while the Amazon is miles of lush, humid jungle covering northeast South America. But despite their stark contrasts, they are intimately connected. New research shows that each year, millions of tons of nutrient-rich Saharan dust crosses the Atlantic Ocean and fertilizes the Amazon rainforest.

This trans-Atlantic journey, described in the journalGeophysical Research Letters, provides insight into the role dust plays in the environment and its effects on local and global climate.

“We know that dust is very important in many ways. It is an essential component of Earth system. Dust will affect climate and, at the same time, climate change will affect dust,” study lead author Hongbin Yu said in a press release.

Read the full article: Nature World News

Sand storms in Korea

Photo credit: AsiaOne

The worst winter seasonal yellow dust in five years blanketed the Korean Peninsula, prompting the authorities to issue health warnings against the sandy, chemical-laden wind from China, according to domestic media.(AFP)

Yellow dust worsens in Korea

The Korea Herald/Asia News Network

Yellow dust swept into Korea on Sunday carrying with it fine dust particles that contain various pollutants, including carcinogens.

Although the yellow dust phenomenon occurs primarily in the spring, the country was hit on Monday by what the Korea Meteorological Administration said was the worst winter yellow dust in five years, resulting in the issuing of the sixth yellow dust warning since 2002.

On Monday morning, the KMA issued a yellow dust warning for Seoul which was subsequently lowered to an advisory in the late afternoon.

A yellow dust advisory is issued when an average concentration of more than 400 micrograms per cubic meter of PM10 particulates is expected to last more than two hours.

A warning is issued when a PM10 concentration of more than 800 micrograms per cubic meter is predicted.

PM10 refers to very fine airborne particles that are 10 micrometers or less in diameter ― less than one-seventh the diameter of a hair strand.

While children, the elderly and the infirm were advised to stay indoors, most Seoulites went about as normal, hoping that the mask that they were wearing would offer some protection.

However, regular cotton masks are ineffective against dust particles measuring 10 micrometers or less.

These particles are so fine that when inhaled, they can lodge in the lungs. Doctors have reported a sudden spike in the number of patients coming in with respiratory problems since Monday, attributable to the yellow dust that blanketed Seoul.

It seems there is no escaping the yellow dust plague.

Yellow dust originates in the deserts of southern Mongolia and northern China.

Read the full article: AsiaOne

Desertification by mining and agriculture

Photo credit: Pixabay

Camels on the Mongolian steppe

The threat of desertification: The Mongolian Plateau dry out

by Panteres

EXCERPT

Dust storms are piling up, lakes are smaller: researchers warn against dehydration of the Mongolian plateau – the region is eight times the size of Germany. Cause were mining and agriculture.

A huge plateau in Central Asia threatens to dry up. The lakes of the Mongolian plateau that extends across Mongolia and Inner Mongolia belonging to China, according to a study disappearing at an accelerating pace. Blame are mainly mining and agriculture, remind Chinese researchers in the’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’. They warn of catastrophic consequences.

The researchers found that the reasons for the devastation – climate change is not among them. In the sparsely populated Mongolia, the number of lakes waned since the eighties by almost 18 percent, in Inner Mongolia, with about ten times higher population density, contrast, almost twice as much – 34 percent

Key factors are. irrigation for agriculture, which lowers the water table, and especially the mining industry. Under the region dormant mineral resources such as coal, oil, copper or gold. Due to the increasing demand for food and natural resources, the researchers expect a gain of the observed trends in the coming decades.

‘ More effective action is urgently needed to save these precious lakes’, they emphasize.’ Otherwise, the damage caused by the loss lakes for nature, the nomadic culture and civilization on the plateau catastrophic.’ Avoiding such devastating consequences is a major challenge for the wisdom of politicians include the Chinese scientists.

Read the full article: Panteres

 

Reforestation and sand storms (Google / Ecns.cn /CNTV)

Read at : Google Alerts – desertification

http://www.ecns.cn/2014/06-18/119656.shtml

Reforestation efforts beat back the desert near Beijing

CNTV Web Editor: Li Yan

Tuesday marks the UN’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. China has been at the forefront of this battle, as it looks to reverse desertification across the country, and reduce sandy and dusty weather from affecting large cities.

According to China’s state forestry administration, measurable progress has been made. For only the second time in 14 years, Beijing was free of sandstorms this spring thanks to a campaign that reduced sandy-dusty weather in the capital and neighbouring Tianjin.

The first phase of the project lasted from 2000 to 2012, as the government planted some 7.5 million hectares of trees. The second phase of the reforestation project is still underway.

Authorities say, in the coming few years, more campaigns will be launched in China’s Northwest regions, which contain 57 percent of the country’s deserts.

(continued)

Escalation in dust emissions due to the interplay of several factors (Science Daily)

Read at :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130610193033.htm

Amount of Dust Blown Across the Western U.S. Is Increasing

June 10, 2013 — The amount of dust being blown across the landscape has increased over the last 17 years in large swaths of the West, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The escalation in dust emissions — which may be due to the interplay of several factors, including increased windstorm frequency, drought cycles and changing land-use patterns — has implications both for the areas where the dust is first picked up by the winds and for the places where the dust is put back down.

(continued)

Livelihoods and communities threatened by desertification (Google / IRIN News)

Read at : Google Alerts – desertification

http://www.irinnews.org/report/81782/mauritania-desertification-threatens-to-wipe-out-livelihoods-communities

MAURITANIA: Desertification threatens to wipe out livelihoods, communities

Environmental degradation, responsible for the dangerous displacement of sand dunes in Mauritania, has wiped out homes, livestock and livelihoods throughout the desert country. An October UN study estimated that land degradation costs nearly US$200 million annually in potential revenue losses and health care expenses.

UN researchers calculated the value of lost cultivable land, disappearing trees and water sources, along with the health care expenses from respiratory and waterborne illnesses related to the poor management of natural resources. The final estimated price tag: 14 percent of the government budget is swallowed up by environmental degradation, or about $192 million.

Some scientists have linked desertification, or land degradation in arid and semi-arid regions, to increasing global temperatures, while others emphasise human activities – like farming techniques and tree cutting – that they say have heightened the pace of degradation.

Buried

A botanist based in the capital Nouakchott, Abdellahi Ould Mohammed Vall, told IRIN Mauritania is at the front of the battle against the advancing desert. “The northern Saharan half of the country gets about 100mm of rain a year, while the more humid south gets about 150mm. Because of human behaviour the desert is advancing from north to south more rapidly than estimated decades ago. You see homes buried by sand in the capital.”

(continued)

Dust and Desertification in Iraq (Google / Earth Snapshot)

Read at : Google Alerts – desertificatioin

http://www.eosnap.com/duststorms/dust-and-desertification-in-iraq/

Some dust blows over the Tigris and Euphrates River Valley in Iraq. Iraq suffers from desertification and soil salination due in large part to thousands of years of agricultural activity. Water and plant life are sparse. Saddam Hussein’s government water-control projects drained the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah by drying up or diverting streams and rivers.

(continued)