Airborne desert dust may warm climate far more than expected, new analysis shows

April 28, 2026 Airborne desert dust may warm climate far more than expected, new analysis shows by University of California, Los Angeles edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan Sadie Harley scientific editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Robert Egan associate editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Editors' notes This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread The GIST Add as preferred source Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Atmospheric dust plays a dual role in Earth's climate: it reflects some sunlight back into space while also absorbing and retaining the planet's heat like an insulating blanket. But while dust likely cools the planet overall, that's not the whole story. New UCLA research shows that the heat-trapping effect of airborne desert dust in the atmosphere is about twice as big as previously believed. Sharper picture of dust's warming power Although researchers emphasized that current climate models are performing well, the new findings will further increase precision. Updating climate and weather models to account for the larger heat-trapping power of dust could improve both short-term weather forecasts and long-term climate projections, said lead researcher and UCLA atmospheric scientist Jasper Kok. Using data from satellites, aircraft measurements and new climate simulations, combined with meteorological data related to temperature, UCLA-led researchers developed a global estimate, shared in a study published in Nature Communications. They found that the heat-trapping effect of dust is equal to about 10% of the warming effect of human-emitted carbon dioxide—one of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change—while most climate models estimate only about 5%. "Improving how models represent warming caused by dust could therefore help improve both weather forecasts and climate projections," said Kok, a UCLA professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences. "Regions with more dust will be a little warmer, leading to higher surface temperatures and faster evaporation. This can alter atmospheric motions and shift where and when rainfall occurs—for example, by suppressing precipitation in some regions while enhancing it in others. Such effects are expected to be strongest in regions downwind of major deserts, such as in the Sahara, the Middle East and East Asia." How dust both cools and heats Depending on size, elevation, concentration and other factors, atmospheric dust can have a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back into space or a warming effect by absorbing and scattering heat radiation back toward Earth, Kok explained. Some of Kok's previous research showed that these opposing effects of dust combine to create a small cooling effect that slightly slows but does not stop the pace of global warming. His team's new research shows that part of dust's overall cooling effect is overcoming an even greater heating effect than climate models previously recognized. "Atmospheric dust traps about a quarter of a watt per square meter of heat by absorbing and scattering the heat radiation emitted by Earth, comparable to roughly one-tenth of the warming effect produced by the carbon dioxide emitted from all human activities," Kok said. "Current climate models…

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