The recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is largely due to reductions in airborne dust and volcanic emissions during the past 30 years, according to a new study.
Apparently all this airborne dust is in my house; at least that would be my guess.
Variability of African dust storms and tropical volcanic eruptions can account for 70 percent of the warming North Atlantic Ocean temperatures observed during the past three decades. Since warmer water is a key ingredient in hurricane formation and intensity, dust and other airborne particles will play a critical role in developing a better understanding of these storms in a changing climate.
Amato Evan, a researcher with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies is the lead author of this new study.
Evan and his colleagues combined satellite data of dust and other particles with existing climate models to evaluate the effect on ocean temperature. They calculated how much of the Atlantic warming observed during the last 26 years can be accounted for by concurrent changes in African dust storms and tropical volcanic activity, primarily the eruptions of El Chichon in Mexico in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.
In fact, it is a surprisingly large amount, Evan says. "A lot of this upward trend in the long-term pattern can be explained just by dust storms and volcanoes," he says. "About 70 percent of it is just being forced by the combination of dust and volcanoes, and about a quarter of it is just from the dust storms themselves."
Satellite research of dust-storm activity is relatively young, and no one yet understands what drives dust variability from year to year. However, the fundamental role of the temperature of the tropical North Atlantic in hurricane formation and intensity means that this element will be critical to developing a better understanding of how the climate and storm patterns may change.
"Volcanoes and dust storms are really important if you want to understand changes over long periods of time," Evan says. "If they have a huge effect on ocean temperature, they're likely going to have a huge effect on hurricane variability as well."
Increased water temperatures sometimes contributed to by global warming can do something known as "coral bleaching." The corals in the ocean get stressed and when this happens they lose their color. That is unless they are soft corals. Soft corals won't just lose their color...they will melt away completely.
The National Geographic website recently discussed soft coral "melting." Here is a small excerpt from the article written by Mati Milstein for National Geographic News.
"I have observed sites before and after bleaching in Okinawa, Japan, and it was remarkable to see a massive disappearance of soft corals," said marine biologist Hudi Benayahu, head of the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University.
"You can't imagine this was the same site. Just two years passed and the entire area was deserted, lifeless."
I don't know about you, but to me this is a bit alarming. It's not that I have a deep love for soft corals, but it makes me wonder just what other damages are happening to unknown ocean elements.
