Chinese dust tracked to U.S.
Atmospheric scientists have been puzzling out the origins of a haze of dust that was spotted by satellites a few days ago as it crossed the Middle Atlantic states and swept out to sea. By calculating the trajectory of atmospheric winds in reverse, they have tracked the dust back to the Pacific Ocean. Spectroscopy also suggests the stuff is a silicate - sand. That has led to the suspicion that the dust originated in Northern China, which has been plagued recently by dust and sand storms. The Chinese capital is once again in a cloud of dust, (click "cancel" when asked to install language characters, unless you read Chinese) and scientists plan to track the pall as it moves across the Pacific toward the North American continent. Our weather is truly global.
Update, April 18: Here's the latest dust cloud, passing over Japan. Next stop: North America.
Comments
Use this as an example of how dropping a nuclear weapon on any one country will affect many countries, sometimes more than once from the same storm / bomb...
Posted by: steve ames | April 18, 2006 8:11 PM