History of African Dust. Free Technical Library News

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History of African Dust

31.07.2021

The research group, headed by an honorary professor of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Rosenstiel at the University of Miami (UM) by Joseph Prospero, chronicles the transport of African dust, including three independent "first" discoveries of African dust in the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s.

Each year, mineral-rich dust from the Sahara desert in North Africa is lifted into the atmosphere by winds and carried on a 5000-mile journey across the North Atlantic to the Americas. African dust contains iron, phosphorus and other important nutrients that are essential for life in marine and terrestrial ecosystems, including the Amazon basin. Wind-blown mineral dust also plays an important role in climate by modulating solar radiation and cloud properties.

The researchers also discuss the discovery in the 1970s and 1980s of a link between dust transport and the African climate after increased dust transport to the Caribbean due to the onset of severe drought in the Sahel. Much of today's dust research is focused on North Africa, as it is the largest and most persistent source of dust on Earth.

Today, Prospero, nicknamed the "Father of Dust," uses a system of ground stations and satellites to study the effect of global transport from the Sahara on atmospheric composition over the Caribbean Sea.

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A modern terahertz spectrometer allows you to determine almost all substances: in the part of the spectrum that such a device captures, radiation falls, which produces most condensed media - liquids, solids, living tissues - and, of course, explosive materials.

However, the device itself is rather bulky and slow: it needs a radiation source the size of a system unit, and the analysis of one sample takes up to half an hour - not the most convenient way to look for explosives at the airport.

In traditional spectrometers, the reaction of the analyte to radiation with a certain frequency is measured, and a new measurement is made for each frequency - and this requires, among other things, mechanical manipulations with the apparatus. That is why the analysis takes a long time in traditional spectrometers.

The response from MIT developers is the Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL). It is about the size of a microcircuit, and gives the result in 100 microseconds.

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