Topic: Deserts
Studies have revealed that dust storms from Africa cause hurricanes to weaken. Here’s how.
Related PLT Activities
- PreK-8 Guide
- Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Risk (9-12)
Dust storms over Africa can be as large as the continential U.S. They travel for thousands of miles.
Related PLT Activities
- PreK-8 Guide
- Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Risk (9-12)
Airborne dust can ride wind currents for hundreds or thousand of kilometers. In fact, several hundred millions tons of dust are carried from Africa across the Atlantic each year.
Related PLT Activities
- PreK-8 Guide
Airborne dust — or aerosols — can originate in volcanoes, dust storms, and burning fossil fuel or biomass. Joe Prospero told Earth & Sky, “Why the specific interest in dust at the present time? Well, there are a lot of factors. One of them has to do with climate issues, specifically the warming issues … “
Related PLT Activities
- PreK-8 Guide
Satellites can track Saharan dust storms across the Atlantic ocean. NOAA’s Jason Dunion analyzed over 20 years of images showing atmospheric dust blowing off of the Sahara desert, and compared that to hurricane and storm activity.
Related PLT Activities
- PreK-8 Guide
- Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Risk (9-12)
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PROJECT LEARNING TREE® is an award winning Environmental Education program of the American Forest Foundation.
Enhance learning in your classroom with correlated PLT lessons. Hundreds of correlations have been developed combining PLT's award winning PreK-12 Environmental Education curriculum and Earth & Sky's radio series.
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