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High latitude dust in the Earth system

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posted on 2016-06-09, 10:07 authored by Joanna BullardJoanna Bullard, Matthew BaddockMatthew Baddock, Tom Bradwell, John Crusius, Eleanor F. Darlington, Diego Gaiero, Santiago Gasso, Gudrun Gisladottir, Richard HodgkinsRichard Hodgkins, Robert McCulloch, Cheryl McKenna-Neuman, Tom Mockford, Helena Stewart, Throstur Thorsteinsson
Natural dust is often associated with hot, subtropical deserts, but significant dust events have been reported from cold, high latitudes. This review synthesizes current understanding of high-latitude (≥50°N and ≥40°S) dust source geography and dynamics and provides a prospectus for future research on the topic. Although the fundamental processes controlling aeolian dust emissions in high latitudes are essentially the same as in temperate regions, there are additional processes specific to or enhanced in cold regions. These include low temperatures, humidity, strong winds, permafrost and niveo-aeolian processes all of which can affect the efficiency of dust emission and distribution of sediments. Dust deposition at high latitudes can provide nutrients to the marine system, speci fically by contributing iron to high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll oceans; it also affects ice albedo and melt rates. There have been no attempts to quantify systematically the expanse, characteristics, or dynamics of high-latitude dust sources. To address this, we identify and compare the main sources and drivers of dust emissions in the Northern (Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland) and Southern (Antarctica, New Zealand, and Patagonia) Hemispheres. The scarcity of year-round observations and limitations of satellite remote sensing data at high latitudes are discussed. It is estimated that under contemporary conditions high-latitude sources cover >500,000 km 2 and contribute at least 80–100 Tg yr 1 of dust to the Earth system (~5% of the global dust budget); both are projected to increase under future climate change scenarios.

Funding

This research was funded through a Leverhulme Trust International Network grant (IN-2013-036) awarded to Bullard, Crusius, Gaiero, Gassó, McCulloch, Mckenna Neuman, and Thorsteinsson. Gaiero received additional support from CONICET, SeCyT-UNC, Antorchas, FONCyT, IAI, and the Weizmann Institute.

History

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Reviews of Geophysics

Volume

54

Issue

2

Citation

BULLARD, J.E. ... et al, 2016. High latitude dust in the Earth system. Reviews of Geophysics, 54 (2), pp. 447-485.

Publisher

Wiley / © The Authors

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-05-18

Publication date

2016-05-23

Notes

This is an open access article published by Wiley and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

ISSN

8755-1209

Language

  • en

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