This study shows that by stabilizing the soil, biological soil crusts reduce global atmospheric dust emissions by 60%, corresponding to ~700 Tg of dust per year. According to models of biocrust cover loss, this effect will be reduced in the future, leading to increases in not only dust emissions but also global radiative cooling.
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References
Penner, J. E. Soot, sulfate, dust and the climate - three ways through the fog. Nature 570, 158–159 (2019). A comment article that analysed aerosol–climate interactions.
Rodriguez-Caballero, E. et al. Dryland photoautotrophic soil surface communities endangered by global change. Nat. Geosci. 11, 185–189 (2018). This paper developed a global map of the current and future distributions of biocrusts.
Stanelle, T., Bey, I., Raddatz, T., Reick, C. & Tegen, I. Anthropogenically induced changes in twentieth century mineral dust burden and the associated impact on radiative forcing. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 119, 13526–13546 (2014). This paper presents the dust model used in our current study.
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This is a summary of: Rodriguez-Caballero, E. et al. Global cycling and climate effects of aeolian dust controlled by biological soil crusts. Nat. Geosci. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00942-1 (2022).
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Biological soil crusts play a key role in current and future global dust cycling. Nat. Geosci. 15, 432–433 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00943-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00943-0