Every year, enormous clouds of dust leave the deserts of Africa and travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

They cross an entire ocean.

And they don't simply disappear when they reach the water.

In The Dust Storms That Cross Entire Oceans, we follow these remarkable atmospheric journeys and explore how desert dust can travel between continents, influence weather, affect ecosystems, and even reach places thousands of miles from where it began.

The story begins in the Sahara.

Strong winds lift enormous quantities of mineral dust into the atmosphere, creating vast airborne plumes known as Saharan dust.

Once elevated high enough, atmospheric winds can carry these particles westward across the Atlantic.

Some plumes are so enormous that they can be seen from space. ...