Desert dust exerts twice the longwave radiative heating estimated by climate models.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42049728.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-70952-9 and PMC identifier 13125314.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Although desert dust is the most abundant atmospheric aerosol by mass, its longwave radiative effects remain unclear, obscuring the impacts of dust on weather and climate. Here, using a data-driven analytical model constrained by observations, we show that scattering and absorption of longwave radiation by dust heats the planet by +0.25 ± 0.06 W m⁻² (90% confidence). This is nearly twice the value simulated by current climate models, which omit longwave scattering and underrepresent super coarse dust (diameter > 10 μm). These omissions bias modeled surface energy fluxes, cloud responses, precipitation, and atmospheric circulation. At the global scale, the sign and magnitude of the net dust direct radiative effect remain uncertain, with additional work needed to constrain shortwave cooling effects. These findings show that improving the representation of dust interactions with longwave radiation can improve weather forecasting and is essential to resolve the role of dust in climate change.