Dust from China could redden today’s sunset

The Orange County Register

May 8th, 2009

By Gary Robbins

Sunset as seen from Sunset Beach earlier this year.

We reported Wednesday that a huge storm in China’s Taklimakan Desert kicked up dust that might rise high into the atmosphere and that some of it could travel across the Pacific to Southern California, affecting the color of our sky.The dust showed up in a dramatic satellite photo taken on May 5. We asked for an assessment from Charlie Zender, an atmospheric chemist at UC Irvine who researches the transport of such dust. Zender sent an e-mail saying, “The May 5 Taklimakan storm is impressive. It is over the Pacific now, but moving north towards Alaska and will probably miss us completely. “On May 8 (today) and 9, a fine layer of dust from an earlier storm will arrive in SoCal. Skies may look a little hazier and sunsets a little redder than usual those days.”

Image of Taklimakan desert storm taken by NASA's Terra satellite on May 5.