One Man's Blessing: Another Man's Curse

The Eastern Caribbean could thank God for Sahara dust, because this is what has prevented any significant storms from forming so far this season. With warm ocean temperatures, a lot of tropical waves, weak upper level winds and a lot of high pressure above us; if it were not for the Sahara dust, we would be experiencing a record breaking storm year.

When dust from the Sahara region gets into the air and travels with wind currents, it keeps the air around it dry. Many meteorologists believe that the dust prevents storm formation, and when observing satellite data and finding clear skies where there is dust and rain where there isn’t: it’s a pretty believable hypothesis.

But Sahara dust in our skies may be a blessing where hurricanes are concerned, those where the dust originates, ‘Sahara dust’ is not just plumes of sand blowing off barren dunes with little to no impact on others. It is also dried topsoil blowing off land that’s supposed to feed villages. It is also a critical indicator of what is going on in the environment on our sister continent; as the sun bakes the ground.

This is bad news for everyone: Sunlight is absorbed by plant life and moisture is added to the environment through a process called evapotranspiration. This is what makes the Amazon Basin the ‘lungs of the planet’. In Africa, the natural process of evapotranspiration has been interrupted by human activity.

As the vegetation has been reduced, the sun enters the atmosphere, bounces off the barren landscape back into space – and clouds don’t get a chance to form. This phenomenon is called the ‘Albedo’ effect. When clouds don’t form, vegetation can’t grow, when vegetation can’t grow, people and livestock go hungry, and thirsty, and the topsoil blows away.

Dust clouds have grown tenfold over the last half century and while this may provide a saving grace for those of us who look east to storms that could unfold upon us; The blessing that is sparing us, comes at the price of the suffering of others who need their soil and their environment just as much as we do. Having massive plumes of dust in the air, instead of on the ground supporting life, is saving lives on this side of the ocean: but taking lives on the other.