NASA On Air: NASA Satellite Reveals How Much Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants (2/24/2015)
LEAD: NASA scientists have made the first multi-year satellite-based estimate of how much Saharan dust in Africa floats all the way to South America’s Amazon rainforest.
1. An estimated 28 million tons of African dust falls on the Amazon rainforest – more than 100,000 semi-truck loads.
2. A small but very important ingredient in the dust is the phosphorus from an ancient dusty lake bed in Chad.
3. The African phosphorus plays a critical role as a natural fertilizer for the Amazon rainforest growth.
TAG: This dust transport is the largest on the planet. Satellite studies will also help determine its relationship to climate changes.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Animator
- Brian Monroe (USRA)
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Data visualizers
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- Kel Elkins (USRA)
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Graphics
- Norman Kuring (NASA/GSFC)
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Video editor
- Joy Ng (KBRwyle)
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Producer
- Howard Joe Witte (ADNET)
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Read moreSubtitled visualization depicting Saharan dust travelling across the Atlantic Ocean to the Amazon Basin. MODIS imagery shows a 2D representation of the dust cloud, which is then compared to CALIPSO data curtains showing dust throughout the air column. Seasonal dust flux measurements are visualized using particles systems. Finally, average annual dust deposition into the Amazon Basin is shown by Amazon boundary import/export measurements. || For the first time, a NASA satellite has quantified in three dimensions how much dust makes the trans-Atlantic journey from the Sahara Desert the Amazon rainforest. Among this dust is phosphorus, an essential nutrient that acts like a fertilizer, which the Amazon depends on in order to flourish.The new dust transport estimates were derived from data collected by a lidar instrument on NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation, or CALIPSO, satellite from 2007 though 2013.The data show that wind and weather pick up on average 182 million tons of dust each year and carry it past the western edge of the Sahara at longitude 15W. This volume is the equivalent of 689,290 semi trucks filled with dust. The dust then travels 1,600 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, though some drops to the surface or is flushed from the sky by rain. Near the eastern coast of South America, at longitude 35W, 132 million tons remain in the air, and 27.7 million tons – enough to fill 104,908 semi trucks – fall to the surface over the Amazon basin. About 43 million tons of dust travel farther to settle out over the Caribbean Sea, past longitude 75W. Dust collected from the Bodélé Depression and from ground stations on Barbados and in Miami give scientists an estimate of the proportion of phosphorus in Saharan dust. This estimate is used to calculate how much phosphorus gets deposited in the Amazon basin from this dust transport, an estimated 22,000 tons per year.The finding is part of a bigger research effort to understand the role of dust and aerosols in the environment and on local and global climate. ||
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ID: 11786 Produced Video
Instagram: NASA Tracks Saharan Dust To Amazon In 3-D
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