Study concludes African dust affects health and weather in Caribbean

Huge amounts of dust wafting across the Atlantic Ocean 
from the western coast of Africa taken on May 1, 2003
Photo: NOAA / NASA)

Saturday, November 8, 2003

WASHINGTON, USA: A study of African droughts and dust transport to the Caribbean conducted by NOAA Joint Institute researchers concludes that weather in West Africa can affect the Caribbean and result in significant impacts ranging from climate change to public health. 

A key result of the study, published in the Nov. 7 issue of Science, is that trade wind dust transport from West Africa to Barbados in the eastern Caribbean is strongly linked to rainfall in West Africa. Decreased rainfall in Africa results in a sharp increase in dust transport across the Atlantic the following year. The paper discusses the climate change and health implications of the results for the Caribbean.

Great quantities of atmospheric dust are carried by the trade winds from Africa over large areas of the North Atlantic and to the Caribbean during much of the year. Measurements from 1965 to 1998 in Barbados show large interannual changes in dust amounts. 

The researchers compared the dust amounts with African rainfall data and found a strong relationship between the dust and the previous year's rainfall. Using this relationship, the researchers then were able to reconstruct the dust transport for 1941-1964 from long-term rainfall data. 

The study's findings have implications for climate, atmospheric quality and public health in the Caribbean.

"These results demonstrate how climate processes can bring about changes in our environment that could have a wide range of consequences on intercontinental scales," said Peter J. Lamb, director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies. 

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