Guyanese Online

Neatnik that I am, I think of dust as a constant foe. Keeping bookshelves and gaming consoles clean is hard enough in a normal week, so my attention was instantly piqued when news broke of a huge dust plume bearing down on North America.

In this case, the dust in question (pictured above) comes from more than 5,000 miles across the sea, blown off the Sahara desert and carried by trade winds across the Atlantic. It’s actually a common occurrence, as our Alejandra Borunda reports. Winds sweep millions of tons of mineral-rich dust out of the Sahara every year. This event is only unusual because the plume is riding lower than normal, carrying denser amounts of dust into the air layers where we live and breathe.     

On a planetary scale, dust is a blessing and a curse. The Sahara plume is full of nutrients such as iron and phosphorus, and annual sprinklings help support photosynthetic creatures on land and in water. Some scientists even think dust plumes from Africa can play a role in regulating hurricane formation. On the flip side, fine-grained dust can wreak havoc on human health; studies suggest that long-term exposure to dense amounts of dust can affect newborn survival rates, among other consequences.

While dust storms are largely natural events, the health effects echo larger issues of air pollution from clearly human-driven actions, such as ocean shipping and vehicle emissions. And that’s where things get worrisome, since climate change and land development threaten to dry out even more places, possibly leading to increases in the world’s dust plumes. The potential effects of more dust in the atmosphere are still being examined, but I, for one, will feel better if we treat our home planet well and make serious efforts to keep the place tidy.