Accessibility Statement Skip Navigation
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • Client Login
  • Send a Release
Return to PR Newswire homepage
  • News
  • Products
  • Contact
When typing in this field, a list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type.

Searching for your content...

No results found. Please change your search terms and try again.
  • News in Focus
      • Browse News Releases

      • All News Releases
      • All Public Company
      • English-only
      • News Releases Overview

      • Multimedia Gallery

      • All Multimedia
      • All Photos
      • All Videos
      • Multimedia Gallery Overview

      • Trending Topics

      • All Trending Topics
  • Business & Money
      • Auto & Transportation

      • All Automotive & Transportation
      • Aerospace, Defense
      • Air Freight
      • Airlines & Aviation
      • Automotive
      • Maritime & Shipbuilding
      • Railroads and Intermodal Transportation
      • Supply Chain/Logistics
      • Transportation, Trucking & Railroad
      • Travel
      • Trucking and Road Transportation
      • Auto & Transportation Overview

      • View All Auto & Transportation

      • Business Technology

      • All Business Technology
      • Blockchain
      • Broadcast Tech
      • Computer & Electronics
      • Computer Hardware
      • Computer Software
      • Data Analytics
      • Electronic Commerce
      • Electronic Components
      • Electronic Design Automation
      • Financial Technology
      • High Tech Security
      • Internet Technology
      • Nanotechnology
      • Networks
      • Peripherals
      • Semiconductors
      • Business Technology Overview

      • View All Business Technology

      • Entertain­ment & Media

      • All Entertain­ment & Media
      • Advertising
      • Art
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Film and Motion Picture
      • Magazines
      • Music
      • Publishing & Information Services
      • Radio & Podcast
      • Television
      • Entertain­ment & Media Overview

      • View All Entertain­ment & Media

      • Financial Services & Investing

      • All Financial Services & Investing
      • Accounting News & Issues
      • Acquisitions, Mergers and Takeovers
      • Banking & Financial Services
      • Bankruptcy
      • Bond & Stock Ratings
      • Conference Call Announcements
      • Contracts
      • Cryptocurrency
      • Dividends
      • Earnings
      • Earnings Forecasts & Projections
      • Financing Agreements
      • Insurance
      • Investments Opinions
      • Joint Ventures
      • Mutual Funds
      • Private Placement
      • Real Estate
      • Restructuring & Recapitalization
      • Sales Reports
      • Shareholder Activism
      • Shareholder Meetings
      • Stock Offering
      • Stock Split
      • Venture Capital
      • Financial Services & Investing Overview

      • View All Financial Services & Investing

      • General Business

      • All General Business
      • Awards
      • Commercial Real Estate
      • Corporate Expansion
      • Earnings
      • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
      • Human Resource & Workforce Management
      • Licensing
      • New Products & Services
      • Obituaries
      • Outsourcing Businesses
      • Overseas Real Estate (non-US)
      • Personnel Announcements
      • Real Estate Transactions
      • Residential Real Estate
      • Small Business Services
      • Socially Responsible Investing
      • Surveys, Polls and Research
      • Trade Show News
      • General Business Overview

      • View All General Business

  • Science & Tech
      • Consumer Technology

      • All Consumer Technology
      • Artificial Intelligence
      • Blockchain
      • Cloud Computing/Internet of Things
      • Computer Electronics
      • Computer Hardware
      • Computer Software
      • Consumer Electronics
      • Cryptocurrency
      • Data Analytics
      • Electronic Commerce
      • Electronic Gaming
      • Financial Technology
      • Mobile Entertainment
      • Multimedia & Internet
      • Peripherals
      • Social Media
      • STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math)
      • Supply Chain/Logistics
      • Wireless Communications
      • Consumer Technology Overview

      • View All Consumer Technology

      • Energy & Natural Resources

      • All Energy
      • Alternative Energies
      • Chemical
      • Electrical Utilities
      • Gas
      • General Manufacturing
      • Mining
      • Mining & Metals
      • Oil & Energy
      • Oil and Gas Discoveries
      • Utilities
      • Water Utilities
      • Energy & Natural Resources Overview

      • View All Energy & Natural Resources

      • Environ­ment

      • All Environ­ment
      • Conservation & Recycling
      • Environmental Issues
      • Environmental Policy
      • Environmental Products & Services
      • Green Technology
      • Natural Disasters
      • Environ­ment Overview

      • View All Environ­ment

      • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing

      • All Heavy Industry & Manufacturing
      • Aerospace & Defense
      • Agriculture
      • Chemical
      • Construction & Building
      • General Manufacturing
      • HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning)
      • Machinery
      • Machine Tools, Metalworking and Metallurgy
      • Mining
      • Mining & Metals
      • Paper, Forest Products & Containers
      • Precious Metals
      • Textiles
      • Tobacco
      • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing Overview

      • View All Heavy Industry & Manufacturing

      • Telecomm­unications

      • All Telecomm­unications
      • Carriers and Services
      • Mobile Entertainment
      • Networks
      • Peripherals
      • Telecommunications Equipment
      • Telecommunications Industry
      • VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
      • Wireless Communications
      • Telecomm­unications Overview

      • View All Telecomm­unications

  • Lifestyle & Health
      • Consumer Products & Retail

      • All Consumer Products & Retail
      • Animals & Pets
      • Beers, Wines and Spirits
      • Beverages
      • Bridal Services
      • Cannabis
      • Cosmetics and Personal Care
      • Fashion
      • Food & Beverages
      • Furniture and Furnishings
      • Home Improvement
      • Household, Consumer & Cosmetics
      • Household Products
      • Jewelry
      • Non-Alcoholic Beverages
      • Office Products
      • Organic Food
      • Product Recalls
      • Restaurants
      • Retail
      • Supermarkets
      • Toys
      • Consumer Products & Retail Overview

      • View All Consumer Products & Retail

      • Entertain­ment & Media

      • All Entertain­ment & Media
      • Advertising
      • Art
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Film and Motion Picture
      • Magazines
      • Music
      • Publishing & Information Services
      • Radio & Podcast
      • Television
      • Entertain­ment & Media Overview

      • View All Entertain­ment & Media

      • Health

      • All Health
      • Biometrics
      • Biotechnology
      • Clinical Trials & Medical Discoveries
      • Dentistry
      • FDA Approval
      • Fitness/Wellness
      • Health Care & Hospitals
      • Health Insurance
      • Infection Control
      • International Medical Approval
      • Medical Equipment
      • Medical Pharmaceuticals
      • Mental Health
      • Pharmaceuticals
      • Supplementary Medicine
      • Health Overview

      • View All Health

      • Sports

      • All Sports
      • General Sports
      • Outdoors, Camping & Hiking
      • Sporting Events
      • Sports Equipment & Accessories
      • Sports Overview

      • View All Sports

      • Travel

      • All Travel
      • Amusement Parks and Tourist Attractions
      • Gambling & Casinos
      • Hotels and Resorts
      • Leisure & Tourism
      • Outdoors, Camping & Hiking
      • Passenger Aviation
      • Travel Industry
      • Travel Overview

      • View All Travel

  • Policy & Public Interest
      • Policy & Public Interest

      • All Policy & Public Interest
      • Advocacy Group Opinion
      • Animal Welfare
      • Congressional & Presidential Campaigns
      • Corporate Social Responsibility
      • Domestic Policy
      • Economic News, Trends, Analysis
      • Education
      • Environmental
      • European Government
      • FDA Approval
      • Federal and State Legislation
      • Federal Executive Branch & Agency
      • Foreign Policy & International Affairs
      • Homeland Security
      • Labor & Union
      • Legal Issues
      • Natural Disasters
      • Not For Profit
      • Patent Law
      • Public Safety
      • Trade Policy
      • U.S. State Policy
      • Policy & Public Interest Overview

      • View All Policy & Public Interest

  • People & Culture
      • People & Culture

      • All People & Culture
      • Aboriginal, First Nations & Native American
      • African American
      • Asian American
      • Children
      • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
      • Hispanic
      • Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual
      • Men's Interest
      • People with Disabilities
      • Religion
      • Senior Citizens
      • Veterans
      • Women
      • People & Culture Overview

      • View All People & Culture

      • In-Language News

      • Arabic
      • español
      • português
      • Česko
      • Danmark
      • Deutschland
      • España
      • France
      • Italia
      • Nederland
      • Norge
      • Polska
      • Portugal
      • Россия
      • Slovensko
      • Suomi
      • Sverige
  • Overview
  • Distribution by PR Newswire
  • AI Tools
  • Multichannel Amplification
  • Guaranteed Paid Placement
  • SocialBoost
  • All Products
  • General Inquiries
  • Editorial Bureaus
  • Partnerships
  • Media Inquiries
  • Worldwide Offices
  • Hamburger menu
  • PR Newswire: news distribution, targeting and monitoring
  • Send a Release
    • ALL CONTACT INFO
    • Contact Us

      888-776-0942
      from 8 AM - 10 PM ET

  • Send a Release
  • Client Login
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • RSS
  • News in Focus
    • Browse All News
    • Multimedia Gallery
    • Trending Topics
  • Business & Money
    • Auto & Transportation
    • Business Technology
    • Entertain­ment & Media
    • Financial Services & Investing
    • General Business
  • Science & Tech
    • Consumer Technology
    • Energy & Natural Resources
    • Environ­ment
    • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing
    • Telecomm­unications
  • Lifestyle & Health
    • Consumer Products & Retail
    • Entertain­ment & Media
    • Health
    • Sports
    • Travel
  • Policy & Public Interest
  • People & Culture
    • People & Culture
  • Send a Release
  • Client Login
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • RSS
  • Overview
  • Distribution by PR Newswire
  • AI Tools
  • Multichannel Amplification
  • SocialBoost
  • All Products
  • Send a Release
  • Client Login
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • RSS
  • General Inquiries
  • Editorial Bureaus
  • Partnerships
  • Media Inquiries
  • Worldwide Offices
  • Send a Release
  • Client Login
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • RSS

NRL meteorologist tracks transcontinental dust storms' magnitude and impact

(PRNewsfoto/U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

News provided by

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Feb 25, 2020, 08:32 ET

Share this article

Share toX

Share this article

Share toX

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The amount of dust flying out of the Sahara Desert each year is seemingly unfathomable. Every year, 14 million metric tons of transcontinental dust travels across the Atlantic Ocean, said Arunas Kuciauskas, a U.S. Naval Research Laboratory meteorologist who tracks and quantifies the Saharan Air Layer (SAL).

These dust storms envelop whole communities — blanketing homes, cars and people.

Continue Reading
A massive sandstorm blowing off the northwest African desert has blanketed hundreds of thousands of square miles of the eastern Atlantic Ocean with a dense cloud of Saharan sand. The massive nature of this particular storm was first seen in this Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View satellite image acquired Feb. 26, 2000 when it reached over 1000 miles into the Atlantic. (Courtesy image by Norman Kuring, NASA)
A massive sandstorm blowing off the northwest African desert has blanketed hundreds of thousands of square miles of the eastern Atlantic Ocean with a dense cloud of Saharan sand. The massive nature of this particular storm was first seen in this Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View satellite image acquired Feb. 26, 2000 when it reached over 1000 miles into the Atlantic. (Courtesy image by Norman Kuring, NASA)

NASA research scientists estimate it would take 53,022 semi-trucks to move enough desert sand to equal the amount of dust transported from Northern Africa to the Greater Caribbean annually.

How do these dust clouds affect community health? Can forecasters predict the large dust storms to help prepare affected communities? Healthcare professionals and meteorologists across the globe consider these questions every spring and summer when the northeasterly trade winds begin to pick up Saharan dust and scatter it across thousands of miles.

This meteorological phenomenon involves an extremely hot, dry air mass, carrying large concentrations of Saharan dust from Northern Africa across the Atlantic Ocean into the Greater Caribbean, South America, the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States.

Kuciauskas collaborates with researchers at NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Caribbean organizations to model the Saharan dust storms and provide prediction tools to weather forecasters and healthcare professionals in the affected regions. 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.

Kuciauskas, the principal investigator for Caribbean dust research at NRL's Marine Meteorology Division, Monterey, California, has teamed with NOAA Science and Operations Officer Ernesto Rodriguez using NUCAPS to track and measure the size and power of regional dust storms. Rodriguez works at the National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Their research will lead to regional weather forecast alerts indicating each system's severity days before the dust arrives.

Kuciauskas and Rodriguez will establish a baseline expectation for SAL events in the region using a 17-year climatology over the Caribbean and statistical averaging. The San Juan National Weather Service aims to develop a traffic light prediction approach where a "green" Saharan dust event indicates low impact, a "yellow" event is average and a dust storm classified as "red" is dangerous to the affected population.

Once developed, the National Weather Service in San Juan can use the traffic light approach to alert the public to upcoming SAL-related hazardous air quality conditions four to five days in advance. Equipped with sufficient time and information, at-risk populations with respiratory ailments facing a "red" air quality event may choose to stay inside. Residents in affected populations may cover machinery with tarps to avoid clogging mechanical parts. Local flights may adjust course or schedules.

Small aircraft traveling between Caribbean islands are the most affected by SAL events.

"They usually fly at low altitudes, around 3-5 kilometers, where the Saharan dust is transported," Rodriguez said. "An accurate forecast of a SAL event will provide enough lead time to the aviation and maritime community to plan the operations, taking into account the visibility reduction and the poor air quality."

The U.S. 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.

Numerous global land-based sites routinely launch rawinsondes. Over the oceans or other bodies of water, rawinsondes are too sparsely located to provide a reasonable picture of SAL events, said Kuciauskas. By contrast, NUCAPS gathers information from satellites that provide continuous measurements over oceans allowing forecasters to see clearly vertical profiles containing similar information to what is available over land.

"In the case of SAL, we are able to create a really good picture on a daily basis on the dryness, temperature and lapse rate," Kuciauskas said. Using NUCAPS, meteorologists can determine if an incoming SAL event will "come in and stabilize everything versus what it is now," he said.

Saharan dust storms often overlap with the summer hurricane season creating a curious effect on each other.  Saharan dust storms consist of dry, hot air and particulates, while hurricane development relies on wet and relatively cool conditions within its path. When these two systems meet, they cancel each other out or one reduces the impact of the other.

The NUCAPS software allows forecasters to look ahead at air quality and affect SAL events may have on incoming hurricanes.  Kuciauskas said Navy forecasters are interested in tracking these storms in the same way as other meteorologists.  "If you have that information available, the Navy can plan their daily maneuvers across the Atlantic basin," said Kuciauskas.

NUCAPS is a publically available tool. Kuciauskas has trained civilian U.S. and international forecasters throughout the Caribbean on how to use the program to profile Saharan dust storms. The new tool is becoming increasingly popular in the region because it distinguishes between different aerosols affecting the Caribbean. NUCAPS provides data on the carbon monoxide and ozone gases and differentiates between a Saharan dust storm and smoke pollution from a fire traveling across the Atlantic.

Kuciauskas plans to introduce and train meteorologists at NRL – Monterey  and the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center to leverage NUCAPS for similar regional predictions with designs to become an invaluable addition to global Navy operations. 

The team at NRL – Monterey shares thousands of satellite-derived products via NRL's public websites every day. Early impact warnings associated with Saharan dust storms may eventually enable state and federal agencies to greatly minimize SAL impacts on public health in the Caribbean.

The NUCAPS forecasting tool is part of the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, which every national weather service in the U.S. can access. U.S. Navy meteorologists can also access NUCAPS via the NOAA website. 

About the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. NRL headquarters is located in Washington, D.C., with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi; Key West, Florida; and Monterey, California, and employs approximately 2,500 civilian scientists, engineers and support personnel.

Contact: K. Cecilia Sequeira, 202-767-2541

Related Links
http://www.nrl.navy.mil

SOURCE U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Related Links

http://www.nrl.navy.mil

WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?

icon3
440k+
Newsrooms &
Influencers
icon1
9k+
Digital Media
Outlets
icon2
270k+
Journalists
Opted In
GET STARTED

Modal title

Contact PR Newswire

  • Call PR Newswire at 888-776-0942
    from 8 AM - 9 PM ET
  • Chat with an Expert
  • General Inquiries
  • Editorial Bureaus
  • Partnerships
  • Media Inquiries
  • Worldwide Offices

Products

  • For Marketers
  • For Public Relations
  • For IR & Compliance
  • For Agency
  • All Products

About

  • About PR Newswire
  • About Cision
  • Become a Publishing Partner
  • Become a Channel Partner
  • Careers
  • Accessibility Statement
  • APAC
  • APAC - Simplified Chinese
  • APAC - Traditional Chinese
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Czech
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Mexico
  • Middle East
  • Middle East - Arabic
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Russia
  • Slovakia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom
  • Vietnam

My Services

  • All New Releases
  • Platform
  • ProfNet
  • Data Privacy

Do not sell or share my personal information:

  • Submit via [email protected] 
  • Call Privacy toll-free: 877-297-8921

Contact PR Newswire

Products

About

My Services
  • All News Releases
  • Platform
  • ProfNet
Call PR Newswire at
888-776-0942
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Information Security Policy
  • Site Map
  • RSS
  • Cookies
Copyright © 2025 Cision US Inc.