Arctic Glacier Melt May Trigger New Dust Storms

GreenTracker| Residents of the southern US and the Caribbean are accustomed to a thin film of dust on their homes and cars during the summer months. The dust culprit is actually soil from the deserts of Africa, blown across the Atlantic Ocean.

Researchers say there is new evidence that similar dust storms are brewing in the arctic, perhaps caused by receding glaciers.

To date, scientists don’t consider the tiny dust mass dangerous for humans. More than half of the particles in the dust mass transported over the Atlantic to the Americas is smaller than 2.5 microns, defined as “respirable particles” by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

In the ongoing ‘notes’ about global warming research, Joseph Prospero from the University of Miami and head dust particle researchers says that “Predicting the long-term effects of climate and dust transport is exacerbated by the fact that many of the climate prediction models for lower latitude Africa are not consistent.”