A Dose of Dust That Quieted an Entire Hurricane Season?

The 2006 hurricane season was looking grim. Three hurricanes had ripped across Florida during the 2004 season. Four hurricanes, including Katrina, had ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005. Now meteorological signs were unanimous in foretelling yet another hyperactive hurricane season, the eighth in 10 years. But the forecasts were far off the mark. The 2006 season was normal, and no hurricanes came anywhere near the United States or the Caribbean.



Now two climatologists are suggesting that dust blown across the Atlantic from the Sahara was pivotal in the busted forecasts. The dust seems to have suppressed storm activity over the southwestern North Atlantic and Caribbean by blocking some energizing sunlight, they say. "I think they're on to something," says hurricane researcher Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Dust "might play a big role" in year-to-year fluctuations in hurricane activity.

from Science Magazine