Long-lasting, icy cirrus clouds filled with Saharan dust covered many parts of the continent in March.
In March 2022, several large storms carried clouds of Saharan dust to Europe. One of them also brought long-lasting, high-altitude cirrus clouds infused with dust, which led to extensive cloud cover—from Iberia to the Arctic—for more than a week. It was an unusual type of storm that scientists have only recently come to understand. Called a dust-infused baroclinic storm (DIBS), its hallmarks are icy clouds permeated with dust.
In mid-March, an atmospheric river of Saharan dust was entrained by a DIBS and lifted into the troposphere, reaching altitudes up to 10 kilometers (6 miles). The dust acted as nucleation particles for ice, leading to the formation of icy high-altitude, dust-infused cirrus clouds. They persisted for nearly a week and covered large parts of Europe and Asia.
“Actually, two DIBS were formed,” said Mike Fromm, a meteorologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. “The fact that the dust river fed two separate DIBS makes this notable” as it is more common to see a single storm arise from an influx of dust.
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