Using data from several research satellites, scientists will
spend the next three years trying to understand the climate impacts of about
770 million tons of dust carried into the atmosphere every year from the Sahara
Desert.
Some Saharan dust falls back to Earth before it leaves
Africa. Some of it streams out over the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea,
carried on the wind as far away as South America and the southeastern U.S. All
of it has an as-yet unmeasured impact on Earth's energy budget and the climate
by reflecting sunlight back into space.