Africa's Dust Has Been Vital to the World for 23,000 Years

Climate scientists have identified Africa’s single biggest export—the wind-borne dust that fertilises the Amazon forests, nourishes life in the Atlantic ocean and softens the noonday blaze of the sun. And they have calculated its vital role in climate change over the last 23,000 years.

In the words of US oceanographers and Earth scientists, “North Africa exports teragrams of wind-blown mineral aerosol over the tropical North Atlantic each year, with significant climate and biogeochemical impacts.”

A teragram is a million tonnes, and the quantities airlifted into the sky from the Sahara and the Sahel each year by the trade winds and blown abroad would be enough to fill 10 million heavy trucks.

About 11,000 years ago, the continent’s total exports of fine dust began to fall dramatically, the researchers report in Science Advances journal.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/africas_dust_is_a_priceless_export_20161203

David Grant

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