WASHINGTON - The amount of dust coming out of the Sahara Desert each year is estimated to be 14M metric tons that travels across the Atlantic Ocean, according to Arunas Kuciauskas, a Naval Research Laboratory meteorologist who tracks and quantifies the Saharan Air Layer (SAL). This meteorological phenomenon involves a very hot, dry air mass, carrying large concentrations of Saharan dust from Northern Africa across to the Greater Caribbean, South America, Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States. NASA researchers estimate it would take 53,022 semi-trucks to move enough desert sand to equal the amount of dust transported per year from Northern Africa to Caribbean region. Kuciauskas collaborates with NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Caribbean organizations to model the Saharan dust storms and provide prediction tools to weather forecasters and healthcare professionals. One of the new forecasting resources he uses to track and quantify SAL events is the NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System or NUCAPS, a software tool that processes radiance data from satellite measurements collected by NOAA’s Joint Polar-orbiting Satellite System (JPSS) into thermodynamic parameters that describe the SAL. Research will lead to regional weather forecast alerts indicating each system’s severity days before the dust arrives. The Navy also benefits from early SAL forecasts. Navy meteorologists monitor weather conditions over huge swaths of ocean and collect data from rawinsondes, which consist of airborne weather instruments used to measure temperature, moisture, and wind profiles from the surface to the top of the earth’s atmosphere. This information is applied to study various weather-related properties of SAL. (Source: NRL 02/25/20) Gulf Coast Note: NRL is a scientific and engineering command with a major field site at Stennis Space Center, Miss.
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