Picture by NOAA
I remember times in Arizona when we would have sand storms. Sometimes they would be little ones, but I remember one specifically that was so bad we were stuck in a restaurant for a while till it settled down. Being young, I was scared because the sand just engulfed you.
The Dust Bowl that happened in the 1930s was on a whole different level. As you can see in the pictures, it just covered towns with a mess. It is thought that poor land use, drought, and sea surface temperature created these massive sand storms. The storms then in turn, created a greater drought. The sand cut off the evaporation process, drying out the atmosphere. This drought carried all the way across the great plains of the United States. After this, some new rules were put into play to help with soil erosion and keep this catastrophe from ever happening again. However, other countries are not as fortunate. In fact, China may be seeing this type of weather event soon.
This is crazy to think about. Hopefully China does not end up in this situation!
ReplyDeleteThat's scary! But that's an awesome picture. Is it already too late for China to put something in place to help the severeness?
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