June 4, 2022 - Dust off of West Africa

Dust off of West Africa
Tweet
Share

Northern Africa’s Sahara Desert has been renown as the Earth’s largest
source of airborne dust. Each year, winds lift about 800 million metric
tons of desert dust from the region. Dust storms are common during the
spring, summer, and early fall, when huge plumes of dry, dusty air from
the Sahara Desert (the Saharan Air Layer) blow westward over the
tropical Atlantic Ocean.

On June 3, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite captured a true-color image of
a massive river of dust on the move from the Sahara Desert across the
Atlantic Ocean. This image captures just a portion of a near-continuous
mass of airborne dust that rises in Algeria and stretches almost 2,500
miles (4,000 km) across the ocean. The dust is so thick that the Cape
Verde Islands, which lie between 368 and 530 miles (600-850 km) off the
African coast, are completely obscured from view.

Dust from Africa can affect air quality as far away as North and South
America if it rides the Saharan Air Layer across the Atlantic. The dust
also plays an important ecological role, such as fertilizing soils in
the Amazon and building beaches in the Caribbean. The dry, warm, and
windy conditions associated with Saharan Air Layer outbreaks can also
suppress the formation and intensification of tropical cyclones.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 6/3/2022
Resolutions: 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-06-04

--- up 13 weeks, 5 days, 20 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)