What substances did the African dust that “covered” Greece contain?

The Hellenic Geological and Mining Research Authority prepared a particularly interesting study on the composition of African dust.

Every year the phenomenon of the transport of Saharan dust repeats in our country, while approximately every 15 to 20 years its appearance occurs with great intensity, according to what was reported by the Secretary General of the Academy of Athens, National Representative for Climate Change, Christos Zerefos, who speaking on the First Program 91.6 and 105.8 and on the show “Morning Party” with Dionysis Hatzimichalis, he said that it is something that has been happening since the Mediterranean was formed, millions of years ago.

“The first to pass the first wave of this dust are the southern regions, Crete, the Peloponnese,” he noted, while comparing the “orange” images from various regions of the country to Star Wars, “imposing and with a lot of red, they also remind other extreme natural phenomena, such as the eruptions of very large volcanoes, the consequence of which is that it turns red at sunset, has very beautiful colors, and we have studied them.”

“Much more than 4,000 years, since the Mediterranean was formed, dust has been transported and it is even known that there are winds that are created by the depressions of the Sahara, which are called Saharan depressions, and in the spring, that is, at this time, it blows, it raises dust from the desert. And this story, in Arabic tradition, is called the period we have hamsin, which is the number 50 in the Arabic language. So for 50 days, such winds can blow that dust is raised and even in extreme cases, like the one we had the day before yesterday, it may have created a cloud big enough to be transported to Europe, i.e. from the Sahara, from Libya basically because this and the air that comes from there is called livas, from the ancient Greek word lips. So he carries hot air, along with the dust. And when they are like that the weather systems in our area can carry this dust all the way to England. In fact, the litanies that took place in the Middle Ages are known because Northwestern Europe has a lot of rain in the spring and when it rains this dust comes down and because it comes from sand and iron oxides and other metals, it is red and it rains acid rain and it was called blood rain, it was a bad omen for the Western Europe of the Middle Ages” said Mr. Zerefos.

What we inhale is dust, he explained, namely silicon oxides and iron oxide and other inorganic compounds, of which the heaviest particles fall close to their source, namely the Sahara. The ones that are transported far are the smallest and the ones that go very far, to Brussels, to London, are even smaller. The smaller the particles that are transported, the more dangerous they are, because they can penetrate the lungs. Asked whether we will have more Saharan recessions when the climate is warmer or not, according to Mr. Zerefos it is an open issue. “All natural phenomena will naturally increase in both frequency and intensity. The Mediterranean is a closed sea which is already overheated. Many areas of the Mediterranean, especially the Eastern Mediterranean, sea surface temperatures are more than two degrees Celsius above what we knew in the previous hundred years and so there is this concern, we are studying it, but there is still no clear picture of what what the Saharan recessions will do to the ongoing greenhouse effect, as man has assisted it and created all these great extremes around the world.”

What did the electron microscope show?

The Hellenic Geological and Mining Research Authority prepared a particularly interesting study on the composition of African dust.

Collecting and analyzing, using the new state-of-the-art JSM-IT500L scanning electron microscope, which has the ability to magnify up to 300,000 times, a sample of the African dust that has blanketed Attica confirmed what pulmonologists had been ringing the bell about all along space.

In other words, that in addition to the African dust, dangerous elements (suspended particles) that are transported due to it pass through our respiratory system.

In particular, while visually the dust does not exceed 10μm in size, its chemical composition includes the elements aluminum (Al), silicon (Si) and calcium (Ca) with a minimum percentage of iron (Fe) and titanium (Ti). And as pointed out in the announcement of the EAGME, the African dust is essentially a plaything that floats and moves due to the winds and its small size.

The African dust that carries particles in a wide range of sizes, such as PM10, PM2.5 or even much smaller, while it can also carry pollutants from the atmosphere according to ERT meteorologist Panagiotis Yiannopoulos, is gradually moving away from the west of the country. In particular, this afternoon the phenomenon will have been limited to the eastern Aegean and by evening the atmosphere will have cleared.