Howard University professor and scientist Vernon Morris is leading a fifth expedition to the Atlantic Ocean to explore the impact of the sand lofted into the atmosphere as airborne particles from the Saharan dust storms. His interdisciplinary science team studies the implications to weather and climate as well as potential health impacts on the respiratory systems of residents of the Caribbean islands. The team he leads is also looking at how the sand and particles from biomass fires in West Africa cause errors in satellite readings. The team’s research has yielded some stunning results.

WASHINGTON -- Almost from the day he came to Howard University in 1994, Vernon Morris, a chemistry professor and director of the NOAA Center for Atmospheric Sciences (NOAA) at Howard, had conjectured that the sands of Africa might play a significant role in weather and climate thousands of miles away.

Much of the focus of the scientific community at that time centered on the deserts and fires of Asia as the place to find the more significant environmental impact. Funding and scientific emphasis on the global impacts of tropical African processes remained low.

But Morris persisted. In 2001, sentiments among some in the scientific community began changing, including NOAA, which started providing funding that would ultimately allow Morris and collaborators to begin testing some of his hypotheses.

After several short campaigns in the Caribbean on smaller vessels in 2002 and 2003, he began larger annual expeditions, often for more than a month long, aboard a NOAA vessel in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa measuring sand in the atmosphere kicked up from storms in the Sahara.

The team’s discoveries there led to other efforts in the Caribbean, which included Puerto Rico and Dominica, and sub-Saharan Africa, which included Mali and Sudan.

What they found was astounding. The Saharan sands, they learned, have a huge impact on us here in the United States and the Caribbean through their effect on the weather, climate, ecosystems, and health.

One key question is how the sands may influence the severity of the tropical systems, hurricanes that form in the waters off West Africa and sweep down through the Caribbean and often bring devastation to America’s shores, like Hurricane Katrina did in 2005.

The storms, Morris explained, are steered by “the same currents and winds that brought slaves, trade, and explorers across the Atlantic to America and the Caribbean.”

“Saharan dust is an unanswered part of that equation,” he said.

Additionally, the team confirmed that the health of residents in the Caribbean is adversely affected as they breathe in Saharan dust particles. The particles can cause serious respiratory and other health problems.

“We have recently been able to show an association between Saharan dust and emergency room visits from heart failure in Puerto Rico,” Morris said.

The health problems are not just related to the physical properties of the dust, but also to the chemical composition and biological organisms from Africa carried by the wind, Morris said.

“We are just beginning to learn how these properties evolve from their point of origin to the point of inhalation or ecosystem contact,” Morris explained. “We have seen that there are a wealth of microbiological agents that can get there using the dust as vehicles and we have begun to connect these with studies in regions in the Sahara.”

The team has routinely observed human pathogens as well as plant pathogens that had traveled from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean.

On the current trip, the team will travel on the NOAA vessel Ronald H. Brown, a 271-foot ship named after the nation’s first African-American secretary of the Commerce, to just south of the Equator and then travel north to waters off the coast of the Cape Verde Islands before returning to Key West, Fla. During the expedition, they expect to observe Saharan dust clouds and smoke from African fires as it moves across the ocean.

Under funding from NOAA and NASA, Morris’s 12-member team of Howard and NOAA scientists and students will spend 30 days sampling the atmosphere and collecting data to determine errors in satellite imaging caused by particles in the air from the sand and from the huge grasslands and forest fires in West African counties like Congo, Angola and Nigeria.

This study will be one of the many research projects being discussed and presented at NOAA’S Education and Science Forum, this November 12 to 14 at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Howard is hosting the event in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Educational Partnership Program.

More than 500 college and university students and instructors, representatives from federal and local government, private industry and the general public will convene to view and present research on atmospheric, oceanic and environmental sciences and other fields.

The Forum is part of NOAA’s continuing effort to increase the number of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics related fields from underrepresented communities.  According to the Congressional Diversity in Innovation Caucus, African Americans hold only 4.4 percent of science and engineering jobs while just 3.4 percent are held by Hispanics.

Under the theme “Building A Community Of Environmental Scholars,” participants will explore how the environment increasingly impacts society and how the science community can better engage and inform the general population on the world’s environmental challenges.

White House officials, elected representatives, NOAA officials, university administrators and others from a range of scientific organizations and professional associations will participate in the three-day event, which also will provide professional development opportunities through special seminars, such as “How to Establish and Maintain a Successful Science Career” and a career fair. 

The Forum is held every two years at one of NOAA’s five Cooperative Science Centers, which are located at Howard University, North Carolina A&T, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Florida A&M University and City College of City University of New York.

The program’s effort to increase the number of scientists from underrepresented communities has yielded great success. For example, Howard University, with funding from NOAA and other federal sources, has become the nation’s largest single producer of minority atmospheric scientists, more than doubling the national production rate over the last few years.

For more information on how to participate in the Forum, call 202-865-8678.