Aeolian dust is rarely considered an important source for nutrients in large peatlands, which generally develop in moist regions far from the major centers of dust production. As a result, past studies assumed that the Everglades provides a classic example of an originally oligotrophic, P-limited wetland that was subsequently degraded by anthropogenic activities. However, a multiproxy sedimenta...

[1] Climate forcing by mineral dust aerosols is one of the most uncertain processes in our current understanding of climate change. The main natural sources of dust aerosols are blowing dust, dust devils, and dust storms. Electric fields larger than 100 kV/m have been measured in these phenomena. Theoretical calculations and laboratory experiments show that these electric fields produce electri...

A number of different dust lifting parameterizations have been used to model the injection of dust from the Martian surface into the atmosphere, and the form of the resulting dust cycles and dust storms produced are found to be highly dependent on the precise form of the parameterization used, provided that it includes some threshold dependence, and particularly where radiatively active dust tr...

[1] A recent field experiment in southern Florida using aircraft and polarization lidar shows that mineral dust particles transported from Saharan Africa are effective ice nuclei, apparently capable of glaciating a mildly supercooled ( 5.2 to 8.8 C) altocumulus cloud. These results are similar to those from Asian dust storm particles observed over the western US, suggesting that in the northern...

The impacts of Dust and Sand Storms (DSS) on people, crops, livestock, infrastructure and health are well documented. Data have accumulated on the deleterious effects of dust aerosols when they settle on plants. Sand blasting of low growing plants is a common cause of failure in reforestation efforts. Burial of plants by moving sands are also a cause of much damage. The physics of moving sand a...