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Desert dust in Europe is increasing with implications for health and solar energy installations
While particulate matter air pollution from human activity in transportation, households and industry is decreasing in Europe, thanks to strict regulations, another source is developing in the opposite direction: desert dust.
To more accurately determine the level of desert dust pollution in different regions of the continent, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), in cooperation with colleagues from across Europe, collected data acquired over the past 10 years from more than 100 measuring stations and combined it with artificial intelligence. The study is published in the journal Nature.
The result: In southern Europe, the average concentration of desert dust is 5.3 micrograms per cubic meter of air—more than twice as high as in central and northern Europe, where an average of 2.1 micrograms was measured. Overall, the amount of dust has increased by about half a microgram per cubic meter during this period.
"That corresponds to an increase in this dust pollution of 10 to 25%," says project leader Kaspar Dällenbach from the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences. "This is not negligible, both in terms of the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of large solar installations and with regard to the health impacts of increased particulate matter pollution."
To enable scientists to make longer-term comparisons, the relevant data collection at most measuring stations does not extend far enough into the past. Therefore, the researchers also used ice core data from Colle Gnifetti on the Swiss-Italian border in the study: Dust particles trapped in the ice of the Alpine glacier over recent centuries reveal that the concentration of desert dust there has more than doubled over the course of industrialization—that is, over the past 150 years.
Desert dust is easy to distinguish from other particulate matter
As a reliable indicator of desert dust, the researchers used the concentration of aluminum in airborne particulate matter. This element is characteristic of dust particles transported from deserts. Particulate matter from urban construction sites, for example, is high in calcium, and particles from traffic and household emissions contain mainly soot or carbon from the combustion of petroleum.
"Through chemical analyses, we can determine the origin of particulate matter found at ground level very accurately," says Petros Vasilakos, another researcher at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences and lead author of the study.
There are concerns that desert dust concentrations will continue to rise, partly undermining efforts to curb human-caused emissions of particulate matter. This study identifies the increasing desiccation of the Sahara in North Africa as the cause. In addition, altered atmospheric circulation patterns are bringing increasingly strong winds from this region to Europe
"It is not yet definitively clear to what extent human-induced climate change has contributed to this development or whether it is further intensifying it," Dällenbach says. "However, our current understanding suggests that the increase in desert dust is at least facilitated by human greenhouse gas emissions and the associated global warming. This leads to drier conditions in certain regions and the expansion of deserts."
Desert dust can put stress on human health
With regard to the health consequences of elevated desert dust concentrations in Europe, the researchers evaluated the current state of epidemiological studies. Long-term effects from transported desert dust, such as pneumoconiosis, asthma and chronic bronchitis, can be definitively proved only through extensive long-term studies.
The immediate increase in mortality on days with elevated levels of airborne desert dust, however, is well documented: Measurably more people die as a result of heart attacks and respiratory problems on days with dust pollution than on other days.
"The number of storms carrying desert dust to us from the Sahara and the Arabian Desert has not actually increased," Vasilakos says. "But they have become more intense over the 10 years studied, and as a result, they are now transporting more dust to Europe than they did before."
Southern Europe is particularly affected—from Greece in the east through Italy to Spain and Portugal. The study also detected elevated dust levels in western France. "This is because," explains co-author Imad El Haddad, who also conducts research at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, "air masses from the Sahara often flow out into the Atlantic and then turn north again toward western Europe."
A unique combination of physical data and AI
What makes this study special is, first of all, that it represents perhaps the most comprehensive data collection to date on desert dust in Europe. "We included virtually all available measurement series on this topic because we were able to recruit more than 50 colleagues across Europe to participate," El Haddad says.
The PSI researchers benefited from their membership in the pan-European research network ACTRIS, in which aerosol researchers join forces to coordinate their series of long-term measurements of aerosols, clouds and trace gases internationally and to make them freely accessible.
Furthermore, the researchers used artificial intelligence to extend existing, purely physical models of particulate matter distribution. "While conventional models are good at predicting strong desert dust episodes, they rarely capture smaller dust events and have difficulty accurately determining the dust concentration at ground level," Dällenbach says.
"With our measurement data and the AI, which estimates concentrations for other regions of Europe on the basis of measurements from more than 100 locations, we were able to supplement the model with this information and thus create a reliable, health-relevant particulate matter map of dust particles for all of Europe."
The data collected in this way can now also serve as a basis for future studies investigating long-term health consequences.
Unlike particulate matter directly attributable to human activity, such as exhaust fumes, chimney smoke and abrasion processes, desert dust emissions cannot be reduced through direct intervention. However, comprehensive climate protection measures to limit global warming could, in the long term, help curb the desiccation of desert areas and thus the expansion of these dust sources. For now, though, Europe has to live with the increase in desert dust.
It would be conceivable to establish warning systems for high concentrations, similar to those used for urban particulate matter, so that particularly sensitive individuals or those with lung conditions can take precautions on dusty days. The energy sector would also benefit. Desert dust in the air shades solar panels and accumulates on them, reducing their electricity production.
If energy providers could anticipate this, they could compensate by boosting production from other power plants, thus ensuring the stability of the grid.
Publication details
Petros Vasilakos, Rising dust pollution across Europe in a changing climate, Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10743-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10743-w
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Citation: Desert dust in Europe is increasing with implications for health and solar energy installations (2026, July 15) retrieved 16 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-europe-implications-health-solar-energy.html
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