Worried About Climate Change, NASA Will Analyze Dust On Earth From Space

NASA will soon launch experiments to the International Space Station (ISS) to measure dust in Earth's atmosphere. (photo: doc. nasa)

JAKARTA - Given the increasingly worrisome climate change, NASA will soon launch experiments to the International Space Station (ISS) to measure dust in Earth's atmosphere.

This aims to prove whether dust has an effect on climate change. In fact, scientists know that dust affects the environment and climate, but they don't have enough data to determine in detail what effect it will have.

As part of a suite of Earth monitoring tools and experiments, NASA will send the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation Instrument (EMIT) to the ISS.

EMIT can analyze the dust using a spectrometer, an instrument that breaks light into a spectrum to see the composition of the target. This allowed him to pinpoint specific minerals in the dust, and see where the dust was made from.

The idea is to point the instrument at Earth and study desert areas in particular, as these are the source of large amounts of mineral dust in the atmosphere.

According to NASA quoted from the official website, Monday, June 6, the total amount of mineral dust carried from desert areas and into the atmosphere is an astonishing amount of more than one billion metric tons per year. Scientists want to measure how this dust moves through the atmosphere and what effect it has on the climate.

Climate change is causing more frequent dust storms (via the Atmospheric Environment) and that contributes to other dangerous weather events like sandstorms as well. However, trying to understand the overall effect of dust on climate is tricky.

Dust can have complex effects at extreme temperatures, a study published in Frontiers in Earth Science explains, and scientists aren't sure how having more dust around will affect climate.

It's possible that different types of dust have different effects, and some can reflect heat from the sun and help cool the planet, while others can absorb heat and contribute to warming. That means it is difficult for scientists to predict the role of dust in climate change.

That's why EMIT is used to measure the type of dust, to see if they are a darker type that absorbs heat or a lighter colored type that reflects it.

Collecting data will help scientists see how dust affects the climate now, as well as to predict how it will affect climate when it changes in the future. Later, the EMIT instrument will be scheduled to be launched to the ISS on June 9.

"By incorporating EMIT global dust source composition data into models and predictions, scientists will gain a better understanding of how the amount and composition of dust in arid regions may change under different climate and land use scenarios," NASA said.