The amount of dust flying out of the Sahara Desert each year is seemingly unfathomable. Every year, 14 million metric tons of transcontinental dust travels across the Atlantic Ocean, said Arunas Kuciauskas, a U.S. Naval Research Laboratory meteorologist who tracks and quantifies the Saharan Air Layer (SAL).
These dust storms envelop whole communities — blanketing homes, cars and people.
NASA research scientists estimate it would take 53,022 semi-trucks to move enough desert sand to equal the amount of dust transported from Northern Africa to the Greater Caribbean annually.
How do these dust clouds affect community health? Can forecasters predict the large dust storms to help prepare affected communities? Healthcare professionals and meteorologists across the globe consider these questions every spring and summer when the northeasterly trade winds begin to pick up Saharan dust and scatter it across thousands of miles.
This meteorological phenomenon involves an extremely hot, dry air mass, carrying large concentrations of Saharan dust from Northern Africa across the Atlantic Ocean into the Greater Caribbean, South America, the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States.
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