The study reveals the pattern of dust over time in the northern Pacific

The dust blowing from the continents of the Earth falls into the oceans and fertilizes with the nutrients required for plants to grow them. This is severely important to the ocean food chains, rich in dust, iron and other nutritious minerals and helps to regulate the climate of the planet.

A new paper is written by researchers at the University of Georgia Skidave Institute of Oceanography (SKIO) and Published In Journal of Geofigical Research: AtmosphereOver 40 years of significant seasonal and annual pattern of dust transport in the Northern Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, it is detected.

The authors identified two primary seasonal dust pulses, one almost in February to August, which holds the peak in mid -April and 78% percent of the annual dust, and saves another from September to January, which in the mid -November peaks And 22% saves.

These dust events have shown very little changes since the 1980s. While the spring and summer pulse saves more dust, the pulse in the winter coincides with the sea productivity peaks, it suggests that it can have an increased effect on the ocean’s ecosystem.

“Most of the dust in the region is well known to reach the spring, but the winter dust is coming when the ocean is very biologically active,” said Dan Ohnemus, lead author of paper and skio faculty members. “So, that small pulse can be more important for the fact that the ocean is actually productive compared to large spring pulse, which steals the story most of the time.”

Research uses NASA’s atmospheric renilis product Merra-2 data, dating back in the 1980s, to track annual dust concentrations near Ohu, Ocean Station Aloha, 100 km north of Hawaii.

The authors also included data of their 2022-2023 Hawaii Aerosol Time-series (HATS) project, which revealed that 2022 was one of the most dust years since 1980. Comparatively, 2023 showed an important lullah in the early spring dust and overthrown the dust level.

While the Merra-2 uses satellite comments to model dust for a long time, the HATS project includes direct measurements of both aerosol and particles within the water column near the ocean station Aloha. According to its authors, this Timescale paper provides valuable references for questions that were generated when analyzing hats field data.

Clifton Buck, co-writer of paper and skio faculty member, said, “Hats is looking at a specific place in the North Pacific, but there is widespread prevention worldwide.” “Any place where there is important atmospheric statement for the open ocean – projects like hats are studying how dust reaches there and what happens after accumulating.”

In addition to the paper, the authors of the paper include Charlotte Kollman and Maria Rikki, a student of SkiO doctorate, as well as a former Skio Research Professional and Current Associate Scientist Christopher Marse at Delaware University.