African droughts and dust transport to the caribbean: climate change implications
Abstract
Great quantities of African dust are carried over large areas of the Atlantic and to the Caribbean during much of the year. Measurements made from 1965 to 1998 in Barbados trade winds show large interannual changes that are highly anticorrelated with rainfall in the Soudano-Sahel, a region that has suffered varying degrees of drought since 1970. Regression estimates based on long-term rainfall data suggest that dust concentrations were sharply lower during much of the 20th century before 1970, when rainfall was more normal. Because of the great sensitivity of dust emissions to climate, future changes in climate could result in large changes in emissions from African and other arid regions that, in turn, could lead to impacts on climate over large areas.
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The NE Atlantic region off NW Africa is almost permanently affected by the dusty Saharan Air Layer (SAL) airstream.
“In-situ measurements (Prospero and Lamb, 2003;Rodríguez et al., 2015;Rodríguez and López-Darias, 2021), satellite observations (Huang et al., 2010;Tsamalis et al., 2013) and models (Fig. 1B) show that this region is almost permanently affected by the dusty Saharan Air Layer (SAL) airstream (Prospero et al., 2021).”
From African desert dust influences migrations and fisheries of the Atlantic skipjack-tuna (2023) · cites this paper as Prospero and Lamb, 2003
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“In-situ measurements (Prospero and Lamb, 2003; Rodríguez et al., 2015; Rodríguez and L ´ opez-Darias, 2021), satellite observations (Huang et al., 2010; Tsamalis et al., 2013) and models (Fig.”
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- Authors
- Prospero, J. M., & Lamb, P. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Miami (US)
- Corresponding author
- Prospero, Joseph M.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2003-11-07
- Volume
- 302
- Issue
- 5647
- Pages
- 1024-1027
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2008056674
- Cited by
- 996
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 64 · 2020: 55 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 49 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 56 · 2015: 48 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 56 · 2012: 55
- FWCI
- 27.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Earth-Surface Processes › Aeolian processes and effects
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
- Keywords
- African dust, Saharan dust, dust transport, Caribbean, rainfall variability, interannual variability, dust emission, climate change, arid regions, long-term precipitation records
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