Dust Storms, Human Health and a Global Early Warning System

Abstract

Arid regions, the source of most airborne mineral dusts, comprise a third of the Earth’s land surface, where some two billion people are exposed daily to the fine particles raised by wind. Crossing political borders and travelling on air currents around the world, these particles not only affect the health of local communities, but also put many other populations extant at risk for cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses and a host of other health problems. Risks of exposure are affected by climatic conditions and their local and regional weather characteristics. And today, because of advancements in science and technology we are at the threshold of significantly reducing these health problems. Examples of meningitis, asthma and Valley fever are used to illustrate how risks may be lowered through a Dust-Health Early Warning System. A little more than a half-century of dedicated measurements of particulate air quality and of environmental science enhanced by Earth-orbiting satellites reveal the truth of airborne dust extent, and much of its variability in time and space. These truths have been essential in advancing numerical, dynamical models of the atmosphere that mimic and predict weather systems that loft the airborne dusts that medical sciences and epidemiology are proving harmful. This union of scientific disciplines and services makes possible today a means to improve public health around the world through a Global Dust-Health Early Warning System.