Saharan Dust & Aerosols
Rivers of dust and haze in the air — the Sahara feeds the Amazon across an ocean.
Drag to spin — this is what yours looks like folded.
About this globe
Aerosol optical depth: how much dust, smoke, and haze hangs in the atmosphere. The Sahara exports whole rivers of dust across the Atlantic — dust that fertilizes the Amazon on the far shore.
Look too for seasonal smoke over burning regions and haze parked over industrial belts.
How the data was captured
MODIS on NASA's Terra satellite measures how much sunlight fails to reach the ground cleanly — dust, smoke, and haze scatter light in measurable ways, revealing how thick the air is with particles.
Data: NASA Earth Observations (MODIS aerosol optical depth) →
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Print at 100% scale. Cut along solid lines, fold along dashed lines, glue the tabs. Your PDF can take up to a minute to prepare — hang tight after clicking.
In the US? Print the A4 file and choose “fit to page” — it scales cleanly onto Letter paper.
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Free for personal use, classrooms, and gifts — not for resale. If you post it on your site or share it online, please credit Folding Globes with a link. Copy-paste blurb:
"Saharan Dust & Aerosols" folding paper globe — free from Folding Globes, https://foldingglobes.com/globes/aerosols · Data: NASA Earth Observations (MODIS aerosol optical depth)
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