Eric explains a global phenomenon that most of us are probably unaware of. 182 million tons of dust from the Sahara Desert blows across the Atlantic ocean, and our ecosystem depends on it...mainly because that dust is loaded with phosphorus. How does that dust impact pools in the western hemisphere?
00:00 - Introduction
00:58 - Saharan dust research
02:07 - What is Saharan dust?
03:15 - Why Saharan dust is important to our global ecosystem
07:20 - How Saharan dust impacts swimming pools
08:23 - Saharan dust is similar to wildfires and Haboob dust storms
10:11 - Closing
[00:00:00] Eric Knight: Hi everybody. And welcome back to the rule, your pool podcast. This is episode 151. I'm your host Eric Knight with Orenda and HASA. And today I'm talking about something that was not in my original podcast queue, because it was just introduced to me two days ago. I didn't even know this was a thing.
[00:00:16] We had a customer reach out about this I don't know about two weeks ago, maybe? And they said something pretty strange that I wasn't expecting. They're in the Caribbean, and this customer said the Saharan dust is causing problems in my pool. It's all over the place, basically.
[00:00:34] And then our rep in Texas, thank you Colby, in South Texas is saying there's a lot of Saharan dust over South Texas right now. And maybe we should look into it. Well, I did. And come to find out this is absolutely worth talking about. So in this episode, 151, I'm going to talk about Saharan desert dust that blows across the globe every single year and how it will affect your swimming pools.
[00:00:58] Eric Knight: Now since I am an esteemed scholar on this topic in the past day and a half. Because I was completely unaware that this was a thing. And it's apparently a very big thing. I have learned a ton about Saharan dust blowing across the Atlantic Ocean. And it's a critical part of the ecosystem. Especially for the Amazon.
[00:01:40] So in this episode, I just want to tell you what's going on based on a bunch of sources, including NASA, the NOAA, and there's a lot of research here in the Atmospheric Environment Journal. Um, Uh, you know, just do a quick Google search of Saharan dust and you'll see a ton of stuff pop up.
[00:01:57] I am not an expert on this. I'm just going to simplify what I'm reading. They're all sort of saying similar things. We'll talk about what it is, why it's important, and how it impacts your pool.
[00:02:07] Eric Knight: So, Part one, what is it? The Sahara desert is the largest desert in the world. Takes up basically the north half of Africa. It reaches all the way from the red sea over to the Atlantic ocean. You probably remember this from geography, it's a very dusty, hot desert. It's essentially a dry ocean. It is that big. It's just massive. And according to NASA's website, it used to be a lake bed, millions and millions and millions of years ago. And now it's pretty desolate. There's almost no plant life in many parts of it.
[00:02:40] When the winds pick up in a certain way, they pick up this large plume of super fine ancient dust. Think about sand from the beaches that were used to. Yeah, that gets worn down over time with friction. But Saharan dust is really, really old. And it's just blowing around constantly. So all that friction is much more. It's more of a dust than a sand. And so when this wind picks it up, according to these sources, it goes up into the atmosphere. And it blows thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean every single year. And it's been doing this for a very, very long time.
[00:03:15] Eric Knight: So much so, according to multiple sources now, the existence of the Amazon rainforest is highly dependent upon this dust. Because this dust is very rich in something called phosphorus. Which is, as we know a key nutrient for plant growth.
[00:03:34] So it basically replenishes the phosphorus that gets washed away by the rain that doesn't have time to absorb into the soil. And this is not me saying this, this is what these I suppose scholars and experts are saying. And I'm on the website for nasa.gov right now. And the title of this article I'm reading is NASA Satellite Reveals how much Saharan Dust Feeds the Amazon's Plants. Meaning the Amazon rainforest.
[00:03:58] It says "For the first time, a NASA satellite has quantified in three dimensions how much dust makes this transatlantic journey. Scientists have not only measured the volume of dust. They have also calculated how much phosphorus, remnant in Saharan sands as part of the desert's past as a lake bed, gets carried across the Ocean from one of the planet's most desolate places to one of its most fertile." Meaning the Amazon rainforest.
[00:04:22] Basically they, they site where they're getting this information from, and it's a big study that they do with multiple satellites, and then it goes to this:
[00:04:29] "The trans-continental journey of Saharan dust is important because of what is in the dust. Specifically, the dust picked up from the Bodélé Depression in Chad, an ancient lake bed where rock minerals, composed of dead microorganisms, are loaded with phosphorus. Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant proteins and growth, which the Amazon rainforest depends on in order to flourish. Nutrients, the same ones found in commercial fertilizers are in short supply in the Amazonian soils. Instead, they are locked up in the plants themselves. Fallen decomposing leaves and organic matter provide the majority of nutrients which are rapidly absorbed by plants and trees after entering the soil. But some nutrients, including phosphorus, are washed away by rainfall into streams and rivers draining the Amazon basin, like a slowly leaking bathtub. The phosphorus that reaches the Amazon soils from Saharan dust, an estimated 22,000 tons per year, is about the same amount as is lost from rain and flooding. The finding is part of a bigger research effort to understand the role of dust and aerosols in the environment and on local and global climate."
[00:05:39] All right. So then it goes on to talking about how the satellite quantifies all this dust. "The data show that wind and weather pick up on average 182 million tons of dust each year and carry it past the Western edge of the Sahara at longitude 15W. This volume is equivalent of 689,290 semi-trucks filled with dust. That dust then travels 1600 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Though some drops into the surface or as flushed from the sky by rain. Near the Eastern coast of South America at longitude 35W, 132 million tons. Still remain in the air and 27.7 million tons, enough to fill 104,908 semi-trucks fall to the surface over the Amazon basin. About 43 million tons of dust travel further to settle out over the Caribbean sea past longitude, 75W." End quote.
[00:06:38] Now this is really important because apparently. This dust feeds a certain type of phytoplankton and that phytoplankton is essential to our ecosystem in the Caribbean sea. Because it absorbs a ton of carbon dioxide. I didn't know this either.
[00:06:54] The long and short of it is the Saharan dust that gets picked up from Africa and blown across the Atlantic ocean while it hazes out the sky, based on what I'm reading, this has been going on for millions of years. It's not going to stop. It's very important that this happens because the phytoplankton in the Caribbean rely on it. And the Amazon rainforest relies on it. Both of which are some of the major reducers of carbon dioxide and producers of oxygen in our world.
[00:07:20] Eric Knight: So that's what the dust plume is. That's why it's important, it's essential to the ecosystem. Now let's talk about how it impacts our swimming pools. Uh, it should be pretty simple: phosphates. Now, apparently according to some other sources, this dust is also loaded with iron and in some cases, some carbon. But that doesn't seem to be a prevalent thing. But it's loaded with phosphorus and oftentimes iron as well.
[00:07:44] Chlorine can oxidize iron very easily, and I think you already know this if you have ever had iron stains. So it's going to immediately increase chlorine demand substantially.
[00:07:53] The phosphorus, getting into the pool, that should be self explanatory. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, and you've been in the pool business, you're going to have an increase in phosphates. Now while that's good in the Caribbean Ocean for the phytoplankton, and that's really good for your lawn, and it's really good for the trees, and it's good for the soils and all that stuff. It's going to be a pain in swimming pools. And I think you know why.
[00:08:15] Thankfully phosphates are pretty easy to remove. We make PR-10,000, many manufacturers make phosphate removers, just stay on top of it.
[00:08:23] Eric Knight: This sounds an awful lot like wildfire smoke. Wildfires put soot and ash that can travel hundreds if not thousands of miles. And that complicates chemistry by putting phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon in pools. We've talked about this in a previous article as well.
[00:08:40] But there's also a different type of storm that affects people in the American Southwest, particularly in Arizona and Mexico, and those storms are called Haboob dust storms. Kind of a funny name. But it's a basically a ton of dust gets kicked up into the air. Apparently it's pretty scary. I've never seen one personally, but we have a lot of customers in Phoenix who call us about this after one of these Haboob storms. And it just covers the city in dust and sand.
[00:09:10] And then it gets in pools and it's just a nightmare to clean up. I have not done the research on exactly what is in these Arizona dust storms. But we know they're dirty. They do need to be physically cleaned out. But there's a good chance that it's also putting a bunch of organic material in the pool, and perhaps phosphates as well. I don't know, I'm not going to say it does.
[00:09:27] But if you're going to be proactive, it makes a lot of sense to take care of these things as soon as possible. Get this stuff out. Clean the filter. We know that with wildfire smoke and ash, enzymes can be a great defense for it. Phosphate remover will be a great reaction to it. It doesn't make sense to put it in before the phosphates get in, but you know what I mean.
[00:09:47] So what can we do about it? It's a similar answer to what I would give the people in Arizona with these dust storms or people in wildfire areas. Nothing will replace physically removing this stuff. So don't shortcut vacuuming, cleaning out the filters, et cetera. I would recommend using leaf blowers and getting this stuff away from the pool as much as possible. And, uh, you should be better off.
[00:10:11] Eric Knight: So take it for what it is. You can't do anything about it. Our earth depends on it. We should probably be grateful that it happens. But we do need to deal with it. So anyway, that's all I have for you. I wish I had more, I would love to get an expert on here to talk about it, but it seems to be pertinent right now. And instead of trying to find an expert where I know nobody in that space, Might as well just talk about it, get it on your radar and act accordingly.
[00:10:34] If you need any help with this, especially if you're in Texas, contact us, we have plenty of representation in Texas. We can help you out with it.
[00:10:42] And that's it. Pretty short episode. I'm Eric Knight with Orenda, this is episode 151 of the Rule Your Pool podcast. Hopefully it's valuable to those of you in this affected area. For the rest of you, sorry. We do have a lot more topics to cover, but you know, this seems worthwhile.
[00:10:58] I'm going to try to put an article together so we can get it on the website. If you have any questions, ask.orendatech.com is the help center. And any episode requests or questions on the podcast itself, the email address is podcast@orendatech.com. Thanks for your time, everybody. Take care.