What is Sahara dust and why does it matters so much for the Earth

Very recommendable! Amazing stuff!

"The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world, at 9.2 million km² — only slightly smaller than the entire area of the US. Given its size and geological nature, the Sahara Desert is the main global contributor to atmospheric dust, producing over 400 million tons of dust per year. This dust, most often produced by natural sources, travels as far as Japan, Scandinavia, or the Amazon, where it plays an important role for the Earth’s biology and climate. ...
For hundreds of thousands of years, the Sahara has alternated between a desert and a savanna grassland, changing every 20,000 years. This cycle is caused by the Earth’s precession movement ...

What connects one of the hottest and driest environments on Earth to the wet, lush Amazon forest? Yep, it’s dust.

Much of the Amazon basin is very limited in phosphorus, a key nutrient for many plants. It seems ironic that the Amazon rainforest, one of the most biologically productive places in the world, doesn’t have enough phosphorus, but you can blame it on the rain: rain strips away unused phosphorus as quickly as it appears, and there’s a lot of rain in the Amazon.

It’s remarkable, but the Amazon, like the Atlantic, relies on the Sahara for “fertilization” with key nutrients. ..."

What is Sahara dust and why does it matters so much for the Earth Wind, geology, and chemistry meet up to create this important phenomenon.