The dust storms crossing the Atlantic Ocean from sub-Saharan Africa are nothing new, but the current dust storm has been quite extensive, and NASA satellites have provided an overview of the massive June flood. NASA-NOAA’s Finland NPP satellite showed that the dust cover had crossed the Gulf of Mexico and extended to Central America and parts of the eastern Pacific.

NASA uses satellites and other resources to track aerosol particles made up of desert dust, smoke and volcanic ash. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) at the Finnish Nuclear Power Plant provided a visible image, while the Nadir-Mapper (NM) at the Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite (OMPS) of the Finland NPP satellite provided absorbing aerosol index values. The OMPS index indicates the presence of light-absorbing aerosol particles (non-ultraviolet (UV) absorbing particles) such as desert dust. The absorbent aerosol index is related to both the thickness and the height of the aerosol layer.

The Absorbing Aerosol Index is useful for identifying and monitoring the long-range transport of volcanic ash from forest eruptions, smoke from forest fires or biomass combustion events, and dust from desert dust storms. These aerosol particles can even be traced over areas covered by clouds and snow and ice.

Colin Seftor, an atmospheric researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Created images of the Finnish nuclear power plant’s OMPS absorbing aerosol index and visible images of the VIIRS instrument. He said on June 23 and 24 the dust cloud had completely moved over. On the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, through the Gulf of Mexico to southern Texas. “At that point, the situation becomes more complicated because the absorbing aerosol index signal seen further north to Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc. is probably a mixture of dust and smoke from the numerous fires burning in the southwestern United States.

An animation combining the OMPS aerosol index and VIIRS images from NASA / NOAA’s Finland NPP satellite was created at NASA Goddard on June 25 and shows the movement of the Sahara dust cloud from June 15-25, 2020. The animation showed that a cloud of dust flowed from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea and up through the Gulf of Mexico over some Gulf states.

Aerosol particles absorb and scatter incoming sunlight, which reduces visibility and increases optical depth. Aerosol particles affect human health, the weather and the climate. Aerosol particles are generated from many events, including human activities such as factory pollution and natural processes such as fires, dust storms, sea salt and volcanic ash from the volcano. Aerosol particles endanger human health when inhaled by people with asthma or other respiratory illnesses. Aerosol particles also affect the weather and climate by cooling or warming the earth and enhancing or preventing the formation of clouds.

On June 18, NASA’s Earth Observatory found that the thickest parts of the fog appeared to extend about 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) across the Atlantic Ocean. By June 24, the pillar had reached more than 5,000 miles.

Dust from Africa can affect air quality even in North and South America if it mixes with ground level. But dust can also play an important ecological role, such as fertilizing the soil in the Amazon and building beaches in the Caribbean. The dry, warm and windy conditions associated with the dismantling of Saharan Air Layer epidemics in Africa may also prevent the formation and intensification of tropical cyclones.

“While the transport of Saharan dust across the ocean to America is not uncommon, the size and intensity of this incident is quite unusual,” Seftor said. “Also, if you look off the coast of Africa, you can see another big cloud coming from the mainland that continues to feed the long chain of dust that crosses the Atlantic.”