Why do you think your paper is highly cited?

View desert dust illustration.

This study uses a variety of datasets to highlight and examine 4-fold changes in desert dust, which is a radiatively and biogeochemically important aerosol.

  Does it describe a new discovery or a new methodology that's useful to others?

This is the first use of a new model, as well as using several different methodologies to examine an important problem.

  Could you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

Desert dust at Barbados from North Africa has increased by a factor of 4 between the 1960s 1980s and the 1980s 1960s and this paper uses both model and data to try to illuminate the role of humans in this change.  Our results suggest that either human land use or a change in vegetation due to the Sahel drought may be responsible for the large changes in desert dust from North Africa.  Unfortunately, the problem is sufficiently difficult and the datasets sufficiently poor that we are unable to conclusively determine the human impacts.

  How did you become involved in this research?

I am interested in understanding the variability of desert dust and the role of humans in that variability.

Natalie Mahowald, Scientist
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, CO, USA