[Video] NASA showed how dust from the Sahara is transferred to the Amazon Delta

NASA employee and professor at the University of Maryland, Hongbin Yu, in collaboration with colleagues, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters an article quantifying the volume and mass of dust carried by the wind across the Atlantic from the Sahara to the Amazon Delta. The estimate was obtained using the US-French satellite CALIPSO. It is equipped with a polarizing laser locator, which makes it possible to distinguish water vapor, ice crystals, and liquid and solid particles of atmospheric aerosols thicker than terrestrial clouds. Three-dimensional visualization of the movement of the dust mass is shown in the video.

In the study of remarkable is the fact of the interaction of seemingly completely different natural processes. The main source of dust mass is a vast depression in the eastern part of the Sahara, which is called Bodele , and which represents the remnant of a large lake existing in the Holocene, with an area of ​​about 400 thousand km². During the dusty borer, which lasts here up to 100 days a year, the remains of ancient microorganisms rich in phosphorus rise into the air. They are transported across the ocean and become a component of the soil, which ensures the growth and synthesis of plant proteins in the tropical forests of the Amazon delta.

Satellite data was collected from 2007 to 2013. They show that 182 million tons of dust (or 689,290 trucks) are carried by the wind across the Atlantic Ocean every year from the western coast of the Sahara. Most of the dust remains in the air, the other part of it travels further - to the Caribbean Sea. For the estimation of the phosphorus content, data from ground stations in Bodela and Barbados were used.
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During the observations it became clear that over the years, the mass of transported dust changes downwards - in 2011 it was 86% of the mass, which was observed in 2007. Scientists attribute this to weather factors in the southern part of the Sahara - Sahel . In the years of increasing precipitation, a decrease in the amount of dust mass taken from the desert is observed. It is still unclear whether this is the reason for the change in a number of climatic factors in South America, but Professor U correctly notes that "... this is a small world and we are all connected in it."