2024-03-31 03:59:53
High concentrations of Saharan dust are expected today and tomorrow in most of the country, according to meteo.gr of the National Observatory of Athens.
African dust is called aeolian mineral dust from the Sahara desert. The desert has an area of nine million square kilometers, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River Valley and the Sudan region in the south.
The Sahara is the largest source of aeolian dust in the world, with annual production rates of about 400-700 x 106 tons/year, which is almost half of all aeolian desert inputs to the ocean. Very often the winds pick up huge amounts of dust from the Sahara desert and carry it to different regions of the planet.
African dust has been found to travel across Europe to Scandinavia and make transatlantic flights reaching the Amazon where it falls to act as fertilizer for rainforest flora. African dust has also been spotted in distant Japan.
The pollution
But the negative effects of human activity on the environment did not leave the Sahara desert untouched. The movement of vehicles, dumping of all kinds of waste, burning of garbage and other factors have polluted the desert and of course its dust. Thus, the dust that travels from Africa to Europe carries a series of dangerous elements for human health such as lead, arsenic, manganese, chromium, zinc, etc.
The heavier airborne dust particles retreat to the surface of the planet and the journey continues with the lighter ones which are also the ones that eventually reach other continents. But experts say that the smaller the African dust particles are, the more easily they can combine in the atmosphere with molecules from pollutants. This is why the African dust that reaches areas with high air pollution such as Athens end up being even more polluted and dangerous.
Experts also say that the smaller the size of a suspended particle, the more easily it enters the respiratory system, causing irritation in healthy people or aggravation in people suffering from respiratory and cardiac problems.
Crete, due to its proximity to Africa, receives the largest amounts of African dust. At times measurements have shown amounts of African dust 50-90 times above the permissible limits.
Naftemporiki.gr