Storm Celia is driving a mass of warm, dust-filled air from North Africa to Europe, affecting air quality in several countries, according to The Independent.
Spain was particularly affected. Local officials advised citizens to wear face masks when outside and avoid outdoor exercise. People with allergies and respiratory problems are particularly vulnerable to spikes in small particle air pollution.
Although detrimental to human health, the dust clouds bring nutrient-laden minerals from the Sahara, the largest and hottest desert on the planet, to ocean life and vegetation.
Sand and dust storms occur annually when hot, powerful winds sweep away loose soils in arid lands.
In the summer of 2020, a huge dust storm, called Godzilla, it swept almost 24 tons from the Sahara to North and South America. It was so vast that astronauts tweeted photos of the dust cloud from the International Space Station.
After what Godzilla spread, NASA used satellite data and computer models to study the plumes. While the dust clouds will still vary from year to year, scientists predict the plumes will be the smallest in 20,000 years this century due to climate-driven ocean warming.
This is because sea surface temperatures have a direct impact on wind speed. If the warming occurs in the North Atlantic Ocean, then the trade winds will weaken and may carry less dust from the desert.
Those weaker winds also mean that tropical rainbands can move more easily into desert regions, keeping sand moist and less likely to be blown away.
The smaller dust clouds are part of a feedback loop that is increasing global warming. Particles in the air have the ability to reflect the Sun, so with less suspended, more sunlight and heat reach the ocean water, causing it to get even hotter.
The large mass of dust, called haze in Spain, “has degraded air quality in large parts of that country, Portugal and France,” reported the European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service, which tracks the cloud.
Although the phenomenon affected Spain above all, the dust reached much further and left an ocher color in cars in Paris, an orange color in the Swiss Alps and a fine dust in a large area of the European continent.
The State Meteorological Agency and other experts described the phenomenon as “extraordinary” due to the amount of dust in the air, although no records were broken.
“The episode is very strong, but this happens in February or March when a storm in Algeria and Tunisia collects dust and carries it to Europe. It can reach the United Kingdom and Iceland, like last year,” Carlos Pérez García, an atmospheric dust researcher, told The Associated Press.
With information from AP
#Saharan #sand #clouds #expand #Europe #driven #warm #air #mass