NASA animation shows how dust from the Sahara desert fertilizes plants in the Amazon rainforest

The Sahara desert, the world’s largest desert, fertilizes the Amazon rainforest, also the world’s largest, according to atmospheric scientist Hongbin Yu, the lead author of a study by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Relying on satellite data, NASA recently released an estimate of how much phosphorus is in the dust that travels from the Sahara to the Amazon basin.

Each year, million tons of phosphorus-laden dust gets blown from the Sahara, more specifically from an ancient lake bed called the Bodele Depression in Chad, to the Amazon by strong winds.

About 182 million tons of dust, enough to fill 689,290 semi-trucks, are carried across the Atlantic Ocean, where about 27.7 million tons of dust, enough to fill some 104,908 semi-trucks, fall atop of the Amazon.

Phosphorus is essential to the growth of plants, which the Amazon depends on in order to flourish.

Most of the Amazon’s phosphorus is washed away by rain into streams and out of the forest, but the amount lost, roughly 22,000 tons, is made up for by the dust from the Sahara desert.

The pattern of dust transported annually is highly variable. Scientists believe this variation could have been affected by high rainfall in the Sahel region, the long strip of semi-arid land on the southern border of the Sahara.

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[chimkinNuggz]

I like these science videos tomonews. Thanks

[BhikshuniLozangTrinlae]

Gong Xi Fa Tsai!

Good to see TOMONews doing some science education and climate dynamics PR at the same time! 

Is the reason most of the world's currency reserves are in Asia because that is where the fewest science deniers live?

[efabcd]

this isnt surprising. theres always a reason why something thrives in nature.

[NightWolfXVI]

Wait, can't we used sand or phosphorus as a new energy source somehow if scientists could do some research.

[husseintoney]

The irony is that Sahara deserts or "Sahel" is the most driest place on Earth. It should fertilize it self before some-where else LOL!!

[louiemillar]

The Sahara is not in fact the largest desert, a desert is a place where a maximum amount of rain fall can fall each year. It may be the largest hot desert, but it is intact Antarctica that is the largest desert

[vefo]

I don't know how could this be possible if humidity would change the form of the sand storm and add weight to the sand, which will make it haver, thus will effect the sand travel from one place to an other.

[tkarellano]

Rain Forest . more like wet Forest "I'm I Right"

[CONNECTELECTRIC]

"If you print it, the sheep's will listen and believe"

[MAUTxxx]

How you like your eggs? Fried or fertilized?

[joshuaboyd]

And people say there isn't a God.