Experts say dust storms can effectively reduce the occurrence of acid rain and inhibit global warming

Sandstorm weather mainly occurs in late spring and early summer. In people’s minds, sandstorms are a “bad guy” with bad reputation, which has brought great harm to humanity. However, the expert on dust storms did a proper redress for it, letting people know that it also had a good side. In fact, sandstorms are not doing anything bad. Experts pointed out that dust is both harmful and beneficial to the living environment of human beings. The key is to scientifically evaluate and understand dust storms, guide people to correctly face, and actively seek advantages and avoid disadvantages.

First of all, dust on the one hand pollutes the air. On the other hand, it can also purify the air and effectively reduce the occurrence of acid rain. After the dusty weather, the dust settled sky is clean and sunny. The reason is that the content of calcium in the aerosol formed by sand and dust is relatively high. The dust in the process of landing has a certain neutralizing effect on nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and other substances in the air, which can effectively reduce acid rain. In northern China, although the amount of acid-contaminated gas emitted by the industry is not less than that in the south, there is no acid rain that is common in the south in the north. The main reason is that the alkaline dust in the atmosphere will neutralize acid rain.

Secondly, sand dust can absorb harmful substances such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides in industrial smoke and automobile exhaust during the landing process. It not only filters air, but also can suppress the global warming caused by the increase in atmospheric greenhouse effect to a certain extent. Airborne particulates (aerosols), including sand and dust, cool down due to the large amount of solar radiation that enters the Earth. This counteracts the global warming caused by the increase in the Earth’s atmospheric effects caused by large industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. 20% of the warming value.

Third, the dust and sand dust migration has also compensated the soil in some areas to a certain extent. For example, in the Sahara Desert, the annual input of sand and dust to the northeastern part of the Amazon Basin is about 13 million tons, which is equivalent to each year in the region. Hectares add 190 kg of soil. The formation of the Loess Plateau in China, soil in some earth-rock areas, is also the creation of sand. In addition, dust storms blow away fertile floating soil in some local soils, increase soil nutrients for landing sites, and improve the local soil structure.

Sandstorms are not only present but ancient times. Moreover, the sand dust flow from Xilai has accumulated millions of square kilometers of Loess Plateau in China for millions of years. The crops on the loess not only solved the peasants' eating and dressing, but also the tens of thousands of loess kilns on the plateau that cool in winter and cool in summer still solve the problem of the residence of 40-50 million peasants. These are not trivial matters.

Sandstorms are not China's specialty products, such as Europe and the Sahara Desert in Africa. Sandstorms are also very serious and have a wide range of impacts. It can be seen that dust storms are a worldwide problem and a long-standing problem, not to mention eradicating them by improving the environment in a short period of time.

The increase in global temperature has been far below the temperature predicted by scientists based on the increase in carbon dioxide concentration. Some people think that there may be extremely complex feedback mechanisms in the Earth system. Sand dust may be a very important "refrigerant" that opposes the warming of carbon dioxide.

Dust storms are a disastrous weather, but in the eyes of scientists studying global change, dust storms are an important part of the biogeochemical cycle in nature. Scientists call aerosols of solid and liquid particles suspended in the air with diameters of 1 micron to 100 microns. Aerosols are an important part of aerosols.

Scientists believe that dust aerosols have important effects on the global environment through three approaches.

First of all, it acts as a parasol to block the solar radiation from entering the surface of the earth. This is the so-called "parasol effect." Second, dust particles can also act as cloud condensation nuclei, affect cloud formation, radiation characteristics, and precipitation, resulting in indirect climate effects, known as the "ice nuclear effect." In addition, scientists are concerned with the "iron fertilizer effect", the "iron hypothesis" - increasing iron in the ocean can increase plankton and consume large amounts of carbon dioxide, reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and thus lowering global temperatures. Iron is from the dust in the mainland.

In a recent period of time, scientists conducted comparative analysis of the paleoclimate records of dust, temperature, carbon dioxide concentration, and marine primordial productivity in polar ice cores and found that “low carbon dioxide concentrations—high dust” and “high carbon dioxide concentrations” exist in the Earth system. - Low dust, two states, indicating that there is some kind of interlaced mechanism between dust and carbon dioxide concentration. Some scientists have put forward the feedback theory of "dust - carbon dioxide concentration - climate" and believe that dust is not only a product of the climate, but also controls the climate. Therefore, in the face of climate warming, increasing the dust content in the ocean can effectively offset the warming caused by the increase in carbon dioxide concentration.

Some people have estimated that dust storms in China, South Korea, Japan, and North America in April 2001 and the facts of marine biological observations in the North Pacific in the same period during the strong sandstorm in Central Asia in 2001 predicted that only about 10 to 15 strong dust storms will be needed in an average year. It can basically meet the various nutrients needed by the North Pacific marine plankton.

In fact, sandstorms, like any natural process, have a two-sided effect on humans. Scientists say that if sandstorms are incorporated into a complex Earth system, the role of sandstorms is not simple. For example, the Loess Plateau in China is a product of thousands of years of dust storms. The loose soil and the natural features of the monsoon rain provide the basic natural conditions for the ancients to develop agriculture using wooden poles and other extremely primitive tools. The great Yellow River civilization originated in the Loess Plateau, and to a large extent, it was the gift of sandstorms to humans.

At the same time, what is even more important is that if there is no dust contained in dust aerosols to supply various substances needed by marine organisms, one of them will break and the entire marine ecosystem will change, causing a drastic change in the global climate. Therefore, dust from dust storms becomes the earth's "refrigerant" corresponding to the warming of carbon dioxide, and it has become one of the key links in studying the global material cycle and climate change.

Because dust aerosols can be transported and deposited remotely, from a certain point of view, there is no sandstorm, and there is no Pearl of the North Pacific Ocean—Hawaii, because creating the nutrients at the beginning of Hawaii comes from dust storms in distant Eurasia.

It is worth mentioning that Japan originally believed that sandstorms affected their environment, but they have recently changed their attitude and believe that dust storms are a natural gift because dust storms suppress acid rain in Japan.

Therefore, we cannot strike a stick with sandstorms. If we cannot reduce it, we may wish to study how we can make it more active and benefit mankind.

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