Coccidioidomycosis, otherwise known as Valley fever, is an infectious fungal disease found in the arid and semi-arid regions of North and South America. One of the highest endemic regions is the southwestern US, especially California and Arizona. The fungus that causes Valley fever grows in desert-like soils and when stressed, breaks apart into tiny spores that can easily become airborne. Ever since basic environmental research on Valley fever began in the 1930s, researchers noted that disease cases are associated with dust exposure. Finding the quantitative relationships between disease cases and dust exposure, however, has proven difficult. This talk will discuss the potential links between dust and Valley fever, what’s been researched so far in the field, and ask the dust-audience: what more could be done?

The Salton Sea Air Quality Mitigation Program (SSAQMP) was developed in 2016 by Imperial Irrigation District (IID), in cooperation with the Imperial County Air Pollution Control District (ICAPCD). The objective of the SSAQMP is to proactively detect, locate, assess, and identify options to mitigate dust emissions from exposed Salton Sea playa. It has three main components or pillars: 1) an annual Emissions Monitoring Program to estimate emissions and to identify high-priority areas of exposed playa for proactive dust control, 2) an annual Proactive Dust Control Plan (PDCP) with recommendations and design for site-specific dust control measures (DCMs), and 3) implementation of DCMs (e.g., surface roughening and vegetation establishment) (Figure 1). The annual Emissions Monitoring Program is designed to work together with the development of the annual PDCP to provide options to the IID and stakeholders to proactively mitigate windblown emissions of particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter (PM10) at the Salton Sea. Figure 1 provides information (in the form of an infographic) about each “pillar” of the program, including activity and progress at each step. This is a cyclical process that repeats each year, providing a growing body of knowledge and experience to address air quality mitigation at the Salton Sea as playa exposure accelerates.

Implementation of the SSAQMP, including the main components identified above, is based on a comprehensive, science-based, adaptive approach to proactively address the potential for increased dust emissions associated with the transfer of up to approximately 300,000 acre-feet per year of conserved water under the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA). The conserved water transfer reduces the volume of agricultural return flow to the Salton Sea, thereby increasing the potential for exposed playa and dust emissions that could affect communities and agriculture near and around the Sea.

This presentation will focus on the main program components, including progress on implementation as well as future challenges.

The Salton Sea Air Quality Mitigation Program (SSAQMP) was developed in 2016 by Imperial Irrigation District (IID), in cooperation with the Imperial County Air Pollution Control District (ICAPCD). The objective of the SSAQMP is to proactively detect, locate, assess, and identify options to mitigate dust emissions from exposed Salton Sea playa. It has three main components or pillars: 1) an annual Emissions Monitoring Program to estimate emissions and to identify high-priority areas of exposed playa for proactive dust control, 2) an annual Proactive Dust Control Plan (PDCP) with recommendations and design for site-specific dust control measures (DCMs), and 3) implementation of DCMs (e.g., surface roughening and vegetation establishment) (Figure 1). The annual Emissions Monitoring Program is designed to work together with the development of the annual PDCP to provide options to the IID and stakeholders to proactively mitigate windblown emissions of particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter (PM10) at the Salton Sea. Figure 1 provides information (in the form of an infographic) about each “pillar” of the program, including activity and progress at each step. This is a cyclical process that repeats each year, providing a growing body of knowledge and experience to address air quality mitigation at the Salton Sea as playa exposure accelerates.

Implementation of the SSAQMP, including the main components identified above, is based on a comprehensive, science-based, adaptive approach to proactively address the potential for increased dust emissions associated with the transfer of up to approximately 300,000 acre-feet per year of conserved water under the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA). The conserved water transfer reduces the volume of agricultural return flow to the Salton Sea, thereby increasing the potential for exposed playa and dust emissions that could affect communities and agriculture near and around the Sea.

This presentation will focus on the main program components, including progress on implementation as well as future challenges.

DUST^2, an abbreviation for Dust across a Desert-Urban-Summit Transect, is a set of interconnected projects studying the modern dust system in southwestern North America, from source regions in the Great Basin to sinks in the Rocky Mountains.  The initiative involves a wide variety of field and lab-based methods focused on dust emitting landscapes, dust transport modeling, dust collection in urban and mountain settings, snow monitoring and snowmelt modeling, and investigation of dust-influenced soils coupled with analysis and modeling of the cycling of dust-derived nutrients.  As part of this broad effort, a network of passive marble samples has been installed on mountain summits and high ridgelines in the Uinta and Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah, across southern Utah, and northward through eastern Nevada into southern Idaho.  Two samplers are also deployed at lower elevations along the heavily urbanized Wasatch Front in northern Utah.  All samplers are normally emptied twice per year: a collection in early summer represents winter dust, and a second collection in the fall represents summer dust.  Over the first two years of collection (fall 2020 through fall 2022) considerable variability was observed in depositional flux, grain size distribution, color, major and trace element geochemistry, and Sr and Nd fingerprints between different collector locations.  This variability supports the theory that the overwhelming fraction of this dust is locally sourced, rather than far-traveled and uniformly mixed.

Dust/loess is well known as both an archive of climate and agent of climate change for Earth’s recent record. But dust deposits are increasingly recognized in Earth’s deep-time record, especially from the Permian. Thick dust deposits occur in the western-midcontinent U.S., and elsewhere (e.g. France) along the paleoequator. Dust was sourced from regions that included the equatorial Central Pangaean Mountains. Notably, the voluminous atmospheric dust stimulated productivity in the marine and terrestrial biosphere, thus affecting carbon cycling. Recent recognition of extraordinarily thick dust deposits in the Permian Anadarko basin have spawned efforts for an international research coring campaign to recover the longest continuous record of climate ever attempted.

Aircraft measurements have revealed that super coarse dust (diameter > 10 mm) is surprisingly abundant in Earth’s atmosphere. However, most current models either neglect or greatly underestimate the abundance of super coarse dust. In this seminar, I explore the causes of this model underestimation of super coarse dust. I derive a new parameterization for the size distribution of emitted dust aerosols that matches measurements of super coarse dust close to source regions. Despite this improvement in the accuracy of coarse dust emissions, models still greatly underestimate super coarse dust in dust outflow regions. Thus, the model underestimation of super coarse atmospheric dust is in part due to the underestimation of super coarse dust emission and likely in part due to errors in deposition processes.

Dust carries consequences for public health, visibility, trade and transportation, and water insecurity, yet dust largely remains inscrutable to regulatory science. I examine the politics of how we measure, monitor, and manage dust in the United States and particularly the consequences of lacking regulatory data on dust and the ensuing uncertainty. This becomes even more of an issue in the Anthropocene, an era of environmental change that complicates our ability to see emerging environmental issues and understand anticipated future conditions. Current data practices can mislead efforts to better adapt to new environmental conditions. These include the designation and dismissal of outliers, particularly in changing systems, spatial gaps in monitoring systems, and even ambiguity about what counts as dust.

I focus specifically on a case study of the Exceptional Events Rule (EER) of the Clean Air Act that excludes data, resulting in air quality events—and dust storms in particular—going unregulated. Using a mixed-methods approach including interviews, participant observation, document analysis, and spatial analysis, I trace the data exclusions and their consequences for air quality knowledge and regulation.  This research identifies recursive process of distortion at play where constructing categories of abnormal–normal allows for the exclusion of “outliers” from data sets, which ultimately produces a false rarity and hides environmental changes. The result is regular and repeated surprises, unnoticed hazards, undetected exposures, and ultimately deregulation.

Dust storms appear to be a growing health hazard in the United States.  However, only a limited number of population-based health studies of dust storms have been published, and many of those use dust storm data sources known to have limitations.  In this talk we present dust storm epidemiology research covering 4 southwestern U.S. states conducted under an ongoing NIH R21 grant. First, we explore and evaluate alternative dust storm data sources to determine which are potentially better-suited to dust storm health research than those used previously, and second we quantify associations between dust storms and Emergency Department visits in a limited data set.  Future work will combine these lines of research.

Dust storms appear to be a growing health hazard in the United States.  However, only a limited number of population-based health studies of dust storms have been published, and many of those use dust storm data sources known to have limitations.  In this talk we present dust storm epidemiology research covering 4 southwestern U.S. states conducted under an ongoing NIH R21 grant. First, we explore and evaluate alternative dust storm data sources to determine which are potentially better-suited to dust storm health research than those used previously, and second we quantify associations between dust storms and Emergency Department visits in a limited data set.  Future work will combine these lines of research.

Dust storms appear to be a growing health hazard in the United States.  However, only a limited number of population-based health studies of dust storms have been published, and many of those use dust storm data sources known to have limitations.  In this talk we present dust storm epidemiology research covering 4 southwestern U.S. states conducted under an ongoing NIH R21 grant. First, we explore and evaluate alternative dust storm data sources to determine which are potentially better-suited to dust storm health research than those used previously, and second we quantify associations between dust storms and Emergency Department visits in a limited data set.  Future work will combine these lines of research.

As emerging environmental risks continue to challenge scientists, the need to enhance research designs and apply innovative technology and data products to basic epidemiology questions is at the forefront of global dialogue. For example, increased frequency of exposure to poor air quality (including dust), extreme heat temperatures, and mosquitoes or ticks can lead to detrimental health effects and influence the global burden of disease. To examine the impact of these potential environmental exposures on human health, Earth-observing satellite data provide real-time information about temporal and spatial changes within the global ecosystems. By forming cross-cutting research collaborations with multidisciplinary teams, experts can focus scientific inquiries to examine trends on how the Earth’s systems are changing. This presentation will provide an overview of the use of NASA Earth-observing satellite data, including the forthcoming TEMPO and MAIA missions, to examine risk associated with air quality management and infectious disease prevention and control. This valuable information can enhance public health surveillance programs and ultimately strengthen current efforts to meet national and international health goals, like the Sustainable Development Goals. Audience members will gain insight on these advanced approaches and learn about existing and upcoming capacity building activities in the program.

The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is NASA’s next great investment in Earth Science, continuing NASA’s legacy of over forty years of satellite ocean color and atmospheric measurements. PACE, expected to launch in early 2024, will advance our Earth-observing and monitoring capabilities through hyperspectral imaging and multi-angle polarimetric observations of ocean, atmosphere, and land ecosystems. PACE will give us an unprecedented view of our home planet and will support user-driven environmental applications through research and applied science to address societal challenges and inform decision-making. Among other applications, PACE could enable dust-related research through the development of data products such as dust optical depth or dust speciation, as well as inform aerosol transport models for more accurate air quality or atmospheric management. This presentation will highlight PACE’s novel hyperspectral and polarimetric capabilities, future directions for dust-related research and applications, and how the PACE Applications program strengthens ties between science and decision-making.

Ozone pollution has long been recognized as an important air quality issue in the summer; however, it has recently been shown that ozone pollution is a major problem in the western United States during the winter that cannot be explained by traditional chemical pathways. A possibly explanation for this phenomenon is the production of chlorine radicals that can produce tropospheric ozone. In winter under low light and cold conditions, these radicals are thought to originate from the photolysis of nitryl chloride (ClNO2), formed when dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5) reacts with chloride-containing aerosol. One aspect of this hypothesis that has puzzled the atmospheric chemistry community is, where does the aerosol chloride come from especially in regions far from the ocean? In this talk, I will provide evidence that a likely explanation is that ClNO2 is produced in large quantities from saline playas (e.g., dried lakebeds), which emit large quantities of dust that can interact with N2O5. By performing detailed bulk and single-particle analysis on different playa dust samples using ion chromatography, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), single-particle mass spectrometry, and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), we found that playa dust mineralogy, particularly at the particle surface determines the reactivity of these dusts with N2O5,  the production of ClNO2 from this reaction, and the overall impact of reactions between pollutant gases and saline playa dusts on ozone pollution and air quality. Because water use practices are predicted to increase the geographic extent of playas worldwide, this work has implications for current and future air quality considerations.

Iron oxide minerals in atmospheric dust have outsized effects on the Earth System relative to their low amounts and small sizes.  These minerals have large capacity to absorb solar radiation and can thereby contribute to heating the atmosphere as well as surfaces of snow and ice thereby inducing rapid melting.  After undergoing alterations during atmospheric transport, the iron in some oxide minerals serves as an essential nutrient for marine organisms, such as phytoplankton, consequently drawing down atmospheric carbon dioxide.  Respired iron oxide minerals can affect human health in many ways, such as by disrupting iron metabolism.  The key iron oxide minerals possess particular spectral, magnetic, and optical properties enabling their characterization using reflectance and Mössbauer spectroscopic, magnetic, chemical, and microscopic techniques.  Better assessments of iron-oxide effects on the Earth System await the resolution of key uncertainties, among them: (1) Refractive indices of hematite and goethite remain poorly quantified; (2) radiative forcing roles of Dark Rock Particles (DRPs), indicated by the presence of magnetite, lack systematic study and must be more thoroughly examined according to types, amounts, origins, sources, and associations with contaminants; efficient ways to recognize DRPs in global dust sources are needed; (3) mechanisms of iron uptake by many different marine phytoplankton remain undocumented; (4) pathways for biological responses to iron oxides in humans—considering oxidant generation and metal mobilization/complexation with resultant disruption of iron homeostasis—remain to be discovered.

Join us for an opportunity to learn more about DANA, a new partnership of scientists and practitioners with the purpose to accelerate the transition of dust-related research into service.  We will introduce the vision, organizational structure, and some future activities of DANA.