The Bodélé depression: A single spot in the Sahara that provides most of the mineral dust to the Amazon forest

Ilan Koren*, Yoram J. Kaufman, Richard Washington, Martin C. Todd, Yinon Rudich, J. Vanderlei Martins, Daniel Rosenfeld

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

295 Scopus citations

Abstract

About 40 million tons of dust are transported annually from the Sahara to the Amazon basin. Saharan dust has been proposed to be the main mineral source that fertilizes the Amazon basin, generating a dependence of the health and productivity of the rain forest on dust supply from the Sahara. Here we show that about half of the annual dust supply to the Amazon basin is emitted from a single source: the Bodélé depression located northeast of Lake Chad, approximately 0.5% of the size of the Amazon or 0.2% of the Sahara. Placed in a narrow path between two mountain chains that direct and accelerate the surface winds over the depression, the Bodélé emits dust on 40% of the winter days, averaging more than 0.7 million tons of dust per day.

Original languageEnglish
Article number014005
JournalEnvironmental Research Letters
Volume1
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2006

Keywords

  • Aerosols
  • Amazon
  • Dust
  • Fertilization
  • Rainforest
  • Sahara

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