In May 2017 our buoys in the Atlantic ocean registered an enormous amount of ocean-fertilizing dust, blown from the barren Sahara desert across the sea.
This dust outbreak was captured by NASA satellites, it is visible as an orange-brownish cloud which covers the Cape Verde Islands. This means that the dust travels at an altitude higher than the highest mountain peak, which is Pico do Fogo on the island of Fogo with a peak height of ~2830m. This is a typical summer situation; in winter, the dust travels with the Trades between 0 and 1km.
The positions of two dust-collecting buoys are indicated. In August we'll visit the buoys to exchange filters and batteries. We are confident to find nicely brown-coloured filters due to this event!
Below you see how the Earth is rotating underneath the geo-stationary satellite, showing the portion of western Africa that is clouded in the dust of this particular event.
For more info on our dust-related project see: www.nioz.nl/dust
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Jan-Berend Stuut
