There’s been quite a bit of buzz about the dust storm in Australia that hit Queensland, New South Wales, and NSW city Sydney on September 23rd. Pictures like the ones below have been all over the web.
Left: National Post Tim Wimborne/Reuters, Right: Examiner.com AP Photo/Rob Griffith
But it is the photos taken from space that are the most interesting I think. NASA’s Earth Observatory captured a truly amazing photo that shows the dust storm front as it swept across the continent and headed out to sea over eastern Australia where the borders of Queensland and NSW meet.
That dust headed to sea has an unappreciated benefit – it will fertilize the ocean with its mineral rich dust. There may be some interesting blooms of sea life in the weeks to come.
There’s also a cool Google Earth KML file to download and use with the space imagery.
download Google Earth file (1 KB, KML)
Here’s what the Google Earth file will do – overlay the cities and borders. This is a very wide zoom from Brisbane to Sydney. Using the Google Earth KML file and zooming in further yields much more detail.
NASA narrative for this image: A wall of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. The dust is thick enough that the land beneath it is not visible. The storm, the worst in 70 years, led to canceled or delayed flights, traffic problems, and health issues, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News. The concentration of particles in the air reached 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter in New South Wales during the storm, said ABC News. A normal day sees a particle concentration 10-20 micrograms per cubic meter.
Strong winds blew the dust from the interior to more populated regions along the coast. In this image, the dust rises in plumes from point sources and concentrates in a wall along the front of the storm. The large image shows that some of the point sources are agricultural fields, recognizable by their rectangular shape. Australia has suffered from a multiple-year drought, and much of the dust is coming from fields that have not been planted because of the drought, said ABC News.
References
- The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ full spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.
- Australian Broadcasting Corporation News. (2009, September 23). Dust settles as storm rolls north. Accessed September 23, 2009.
- NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
As WUWT reader Keith Minto writes:
This is the best image I can find of the dust storm that passed over eastern Australia. NASA has images from 12 Sept showing it coming from Lake Eyre. Apparently when lakes dry after having water they leave behind very fine particles that is carried up & stays up. Seems that this is a world wide phenomenon, when lakes fill and empty completely and nothing to do with the dreaded Climate Change. In other words, if the lakes did not fill, and the drought was worse, then this might not have happened! Pity the newspapers did not report this….took me all of 5minutes to piece this together. The earlier image shows the dust originating in Lake Eyre and moving east out into the Tasman sea towards New Zealand, and as far as the media was concerned it did not happen. It’s the old story, if an event does not touch large cities it is a non event.
Sept 12th MODIS image from NASA showing dust from Lake Eyre:
http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2009-09-21
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Nasif Nahle (09:12:47) :
“Viral particles, fungi spores, and bacteria, potentially harmful for marine living beings, are transported to oceans by these winds”
I wouldn’t worry too much, for two reasons
1. This is perfectly normal, it has been going on for billions of years.
2. Not a lot of diseases affects both corals and kangaroos.
Paul R (02:22:06) :
I think it would be a nice idea for all Australians to spend at least a few months well west of the Great Dividing Range, maybe even west of Bourke before they’re allowed to vote.
A dust storm might not be such a surprise to the initiated and be of less value to propagandists, it could also help break the city versus country polarization which gives Australia’s urbanites an unofficial gerrymander.
Oregon,USA is exactly the same way Pard,er,Mate….
Except they need to spend time on the back of John Deere-east of the Cascades…
According to ‘Out of the West: A historical perspective of the Western Division of New South Wales’ by Dick Condon (Published by Rangeland Management Action Plan, 2002) there were severe dust storms in 1902-03, 1937-39, 1983, 1993, but the worst were during the period from 1943-1945. Some of these storms were often continuous day-in-day-out for several days
Climate Progress is blowing this thread up rather large.
Game changer
Canary in the coal mine
Antiscientific.
The same worn out expressions. It seems the conditions are right for this from time to time and it has been going on long before cars were driving.
I enjoy Jennifer Marohasy
Every winter storms coming from the Southwestern U.S. coat the ski resorts in Colorado with a fine layer of dust. This happens once or twice per winter. Of course the local media always blames it on human activities and climate change while never providing evidence how human activities or climate change are responsible. How has it become so insane that ANY natural event is blamed on humans and climate change? Storms NEVER coated snow in the Rockies before our evil industrial revolution – yeah right.
Land clearing has effected 70% of Australia. I still recall Bob Hawke’s “1 million trees” headlines when he claimed he was going to replant Australia with 1 million trees … of course at that time 20 million trees annually were being ripped out in Queensland alone. Rabbits and other feral species have also had a devastating effect on vegetation.
Given that Sydney has never in history experienced such a dust storm, might not this have been a contributing factor ?
Solar wind is at a very low level. It broke an all time record low last year. What’s up with that?
Dr A Burns
that is not correct – the 1902 dust storm reached Sydney and the earstern coast
“The dust reached Sydney early the next day: northwest winds were lighter, and the dust took the form of a haze that thickened during the day (ships reported that it extended from south of Sydney to Newcastle). Dust clouds reached as far north as Inverell, before heading out to sea.”
and the dust storm of the summer of 44/45 also reached Sydney
“Brown-yellow dust-clouds soon reached Sydney, requiring lights to be turned on in the afternoon”
from the BOM.
Lake Eyre, Australia inflows 1885-2004:
http://www.k26.com/eyre/LE-inflows-1885-2004.jpg
It is interesting to see that this pattern relates to the NAM / AO & EOP (Northern Annular Mode / Arctic Oscillation & Earth orientation parameters).
Remember the 2007 Arctic Spike?
I’ve been looking into this and I have developed an index of sea ice area/extent dynamics that seems to reliably precede ENSO/SOI.
Lake Eyre, Australia inflows 1885-2004:
http://www.k26.com/eyre/LE-inflows-1885-2004.jpg
Can anyone – perhaps someone from Australia – point to a link to the data depicted?
“…Given that Sydney has never in history experienced such a dust storm…”
Dust storms in old Sydney used to be so regular they gave them a name – the “Brickfielder”
Sundry extracts from pg 86, Southern Lights and Shadows, Frank Fowler, Sydney, Australia, 1859… (via Google books)
“…Generally, I did not admire the Australian climate – its sudden changes, occasionally of thirty or forty degrees (F) in two or three hours, its clouds of dust, its awful storms, and its hot winds…”
“…The ‘Southerly Buster’, as this change is called, generally comes…early in the evening. A cloud of dust – they call it, in Sydney, a ‘Brickfielder’ – thicker than any London fog, heralds its approach, and it moves like a compact wall across the country…”
A Burns:
Bob Hawke called for a billion trees, not a million. Google it.
As for “unprecedented” dust storms, it certainly appears that there were a lot more in NSW in the 1940s, and earlier, than now. 100 years ago, there was talk of moving all families out of Broken Hill because dust storms were so frequent . A revegetation program brought the problem under control.
Living in the middle of Western Australia dust storms are a regular event although not on this scale.
With all the minerals going into the seas , will the organisms that consume them consume or expel C02?
Paul Vaughan
http://www.k26.com/eyre/index.html
this is a good page
http://www.k26.com/eyre/The_Lake/Papers/Lake_Eyre_basics/lake_eyre_basics.html
OT but related.
Antarctic sea ice screaming above last year by about 3 million km2. Arctic on the rise also
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
High pressure systems over Australia breaking down with cold fronts extending through in recent weeks. Prediction by BOM for up to 70cm snow on mountains this weekend
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN10103.html
SOI heading strongly up as low pressure systems become a pattern again over Darwin.
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/30DaySOIValues/
wow thanks for the informative post, also interesting skimming the comments too 😀
ooops that should be 1.5 million km 2
Loess soil is very fertile soil blown in from somewhere else, especially in areas where glacial melt has ended and silt is exposed to wind. Nearly the entire Palouse area in the three corner states of the inland NW was created by blown in loess soil. That means that at some time before that, ice ages came and went, and moraines, drainage rivers and silt filled flood plains dried up and blew away. Waaaayyyyy before CO2 from cars became even an apple in anybody’s eye. This blowing soil is a very important component of the cycle of life. To give it a bad name, or say it is caused by a bad event, is the same thing as saying a newborn baby is a bad thing. Some people are so near sighted they can’t even see past their nose. I wonder what correction Al needs.
Initially, I could not determine the shape and direction of the dust, one image was 90 degrees out from another. Looking at http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2009266-0923/Australia.A2009266.2310.2km.jpg it is clear that it is linked with the clockwise wind pattern (opposite to the Northern Hemisphere) of the strong low pressure system that moved across South Australia from the Gulf of Carpentaria. For this system to move so high into the Australian continent is unusual, thankfully these events are rare.
Peter West (03:48:57), that was an excellent video of the red sky turning black at Broken Hill, even the commentary by the mother to the daughter was moving.
Canberra had a pink/red sky and dust but no blackout.
Thanks janama, braddles and Binghi … I should have remembered not to believe anything written in a newspaper.
I’ve found references to both 1 million and 1 billion trees … my recollection was the former in the smh. I wonder how many were ever actually planted ?
suzannah (23:24:30) : ….. Actually Suze, lake Eyre evaporates very quickly. It is very shallow and has a large surface area….
Another thing. The inland rivers systems all run west carrying soil into the dry interior… not out to sea as is usual with most river systems and water sheds. Because of this, when that water has evaporated all that fine silt that has been carried inland is easily lifted by any strong winds…..
Also, just an aside to all that….. Those soils are very rich because they are not leached of minerals. The Diamantina area has very good grazing because of these soils….. But of course it is all rain dependent…. The grazing is only good after there has been good rains etc.
Anyone care to donate their life’s income to cover the carbon credits needed for this storm? I didn’t think so. Hog wash.
Correction, I meant The Bite and not the Gulf of Carpentaria.
[REPLY – Bight? ~ Evan]
Well said, JH.
Looks like another dust storm is on the way – as well as snow!
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN28500.html
http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,28318,26123382-5014090,00.html
Evan, thanks,it is Bight…