Mega Dust Storms Spread Diseases Worldwide But Can Help Mitigate Global Warming
28 September 2009
Guardian. Mega dust storms, such as the one that cloaked Sydney, Australia, in a red haze last week, are spreading lethal diseases around the world. However, they can also contribute to mitigating global warming, say researchers studying the little-understood but growing phenomenon.
Photos of the Sydney Opera House, taken about 6 hours apart last week. Click to enlarge. |
The Sydney storm, which left millions of people choking on some of the worst air pollution in 70 years, was a consequence of the 10-year drought that has turned parts of Australia's interior into a giant dust bowl, providing perfect conditions for high winds to whip loose soil into the air and carry it thousands of miles across the continent.
Major dust storms carry potentially harmful bacteria, viruses and fungal spores as beneficial soil and nutrients.
Saharan storms are thought to be responsible for spreading lethal meningitis spores throughout semi-arid central Africa, where up to 250,000 people, particularly children, contract the disease each year and 25,000 die...Higher temperatures and more intense storms are also linked to “valley fever”, a disease contracted from a fungus in the soil of the central valley of California. The American Academy of Microbiology estimates that about 200,000 Americans go down with valley fever each year, 200 of whom die. The number of cases in Arizona and California almost quadrupled in the decade to 2006.
...Scientists who had thought diseases were mostly transmitted by people or animals now see dust clouds as possible transmitters of influenza, SARS and foot-and-mouth, and increasingly responsible for respiratory diseases.
...The scale and spread of the dust storms has also surprised researchers. Satellite photographs have shown some of the clouds coming out of Africa to be as big as the whole land mass of the US, with a major storm able to whip more than a million tonnes of soil into the atmosphere. Sydney was covered by an estimated 5,000 tonnes of dust last week, but the WMO says Beijing was enveloped by more than 300,000 tonnes in one storm in 2006.
Research increasingly suggests that the dust could also be mitigating climate change, both by reflecting sunlight in the atmosphere and fertilizing the oceans with nutrients.
The Aussies need a break. The dust storm picture is frightening.
Posted by: kelly | 28 September 2009 at 06:46 AM
Of course these dust storms can mitigate global warming! By spreading all the diseases and bacteria, we kill of hundreds of thousands of people. Less People = Less Pollution. It's a win-win!
Posted by: sheckyvegas | 28 September 2009 at 03:11 PM