A new computer model of the atmosphere can now actually pinpointwhere global dust events come from, and can project where they’re going.The model may help scientists better evaluate the impact of dust onhuman health, climate, ocean carbon cycles, ecosystems, and atmosphericchemistry.
Also, by seeing where dust originates and where it blows people withrespiratory problems can get advanced warning of approaching dustclouds. “The model is physically more realistic than previous ones,” saidMian Chin, a co-author of the study and an Earth and atmosphericscientist at Georgia Tech and the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) inGreenbelt, Md. “It is able to reproduce the short term day-to-dayvariations and long term inter-annual variations of dust concentrationsand distributions that are measured from field experiments and observedfrom satellites.”
The above images show both aerosols measured from space (left) and themovement of aerosols predicted by computer model for the same date (right).
For more information, read New Computer Model Tracks and Predicts Paths Of Earth’s Dust
References & Resources
Images courtesy Paul Giroux, Georgia Tech/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
