How does desert sand affect the climate?

ArabiaWeather.com - Mohamed Salama - It is estimated that the amount of sand carried annually by the winds is nearly five billion tons, half of which comes from deserts around the world, and the largest source of this sand is the Sahara desert located in North Africa.

Storms raise dust and raise it to the atmosphere at a height of seven kilometers, and in the case of sand coming from the Sahara Desert, air currents carry dust westward, passing through the Atlantic Ocean, carrying with it many mineral salts such as iron, phosphorus and nitrogen, which dissolve upon contact with the surface of the ocean, Where it is considered as food for marine plants, which in turn absorb carbon dioxide, which contributes to reducing its percentage in the atmosphere.

Airborne sand atoms affect rain, as they reflect and scatter the sun's rays, so that only a part of them reaches the surface of the earth, and this causes a decrease in the temperature of forests and water. Researchers have found that the greater the number of dust particles in the air, the greater the size of water droplets in the clouds.

And part of the airborne sand reaches the forests, providing them with the necessary mineral salts. For example, the rainforests in the Amazon get half of their mineral salts from the dust coming from the Sahara Desert, and this is what is considered as natural fertilizer for these forests, whose prosperity helps alleviate Carbon dioxide emissions and the enhancement of oxygen in the atmosphere.