HR: 1340h
AN: A33C-0920    [Abstracts]
TI: Teleconnection Over the Atlantic: the Bodele Depression, a Single Dust Source is Responsible to Most of the Wellbeing of the Amazon Rainforest
AU: * Koren, I
EM: ilank@climate.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: Department of Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, 76100 Israel
AU: Kaufman, Y J
EM: yoram.j.kaufman@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA/GSFC Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AB: Saharan dust is suggested to be the main mineral source that fertilizes the Amazon basin [Swap et al. 1992], generating a dependence of the health and productivity of Amazon rain forest on the dust composition and fluxes from the Sahara. The dust plumes arrive to the Amazon mainly during November through March with the westward trade winds from Africa. During the rest of the year Saharan dust is transported to Central and North America. Using a combination of data from 3 satellite instruments, we show that the emissions and transport of Saharan dust to the vast Amazon originates predominately from a single source of the size about 0.5% of the size of the Amazon, located northeast to Lake Chad - the Bodele depression. Placed at narrow path between two mountain chains directing and accelerating the surface winds to the depression, the Bodele emits dust 40% of the winter days, average of more than 0.5Tg per day. We estimate that out of the total of 40Tg reaching the Amazon basin after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, more than 20Tg are produced at the Bodele.
DE: 1029 Composition of aerosols and dust particles
DE: 1030 Geochemical cycles (0330)
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 4805, 4912)
DE: 3334 Middle atmosphere dynamics (0341, 0342)
DE: 4801 Aerosols (0305, 4906)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005