Imagine you wake up one morning and look out your window. You see a sky of red, hear a ferocious blast of wind and watch as tree branches creak and crack.

No, the apocalypse has not descended on your local neighbourhood. You’ve just been caught in the middle of a dust storm.

These storms form when strong winds lift sand and dust particles into the atmosphere. Of the two, sand storms typically occur closer to the ground and travel shorter distances. Finer dust particles can be lifted high into the atmosphere and travel across oceans and continents. Dust from Australia has been found as far away as Antarctica.

Sand and dust storms typically occur in arid environments where the ground is dry, loose and vegetation-free. But they can inflict severe and lasting damage on homes and buildings, solar panels and farm machinery. And as our planet rapidly warms, sand and dust storms will become more common.

So what does this mean for arid nations like Australia? And what can we do about it?

In Australia, our dust storms mainly come from the vast, dry region of the Lake Eyre Basin in central and outback Australia.

Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre and Mudna-Lake Frome are two ephemeral lakes from this region that periodically flood and then dry out. This process brings new sediment that, when the water disappears, dries out and can then be lifted up by strong winds. Dust storms also form in South Australia’s semi-arid regions and the intensively farmed areas of Victoria and western New South Wales.

In Australia, dust storms travel across two main paths: from the Lake Eyre Basin across south-east Australia, and from central Australia out to Western Australia. However, recent evidence suggests there’s a third, largely unrecognised dust pathway stretching from the Lake Eyre Basin into northern Queensland and northern Australia.

Continues . . .

For the full article visit the Conversation.

ENDS