Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit your work on dust to an AGU Special Collection “Dust and dust storms: From physical processes to human health, safety, and welfare”. This special issue will be jointly published by GeoHealth, JGR-Atmospheres, or Earth's Future.

The scope of the AGU Special Collection is provided below:

Across the world, human exposure to dust particles has been associated with adverse health effects, including asthma, allergies, fungal infections, and premature death. Besides human health, dust also affects environmental health through providing nutrients that increase phytoplankton biomass, contaminating water supply and food (crops/fruits/vegetables and ready-to-eat meat), spreading crop and marine pathogens, causing Valley fever among domestic and wild animals, transporting heavy metals and radionuclides, and reducing solar power generation. Dust storms are also a well-documented safety hazard to road transportation, aviation, and marine navigation. Just like wildfires, dust storms are another inevitable consequence of global warming, driven by the same large scale Earth system changes. Unlike wildfires, which have attracted a lot of public attention and resources, rightly so, dust storms and events are an underappreciated weather hazard, although its societal costs are comparable to that of wildfires. We welcome submissions that focus on both natural and contaminated dust events, that examine dust and dust storms from a multidisciplinary perspective including but not limited to remote sensing, particle toxicology, geochemistry, social sciences using clinical medicine, epidemiological as well as in vivo and in vitro studies, that enhance the knowledge on dust and their health implication.

To submit your manuscript, use the submission site for GeoHealth, JGR-Atmospheres, or Earth's Future, and select the collection’s title from the drop-down menu in the Special Section field of the submission form. More information can be found at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/24711403/call-for-papers.html

The Dust Special collection is open for submissions now and will close on May 31, 2024. 

Please feel free to share this information with anyone who may be interested. And feel free to contact us with any questions.

Dr. Karin Ardon-Dryer, Texas Tech University

Dr. Daniel Tong, George Mason University

Dr. Junran Li, The University of Hong Kong

© Photograph: NOAA George E. Marsh Album, theb1365, Historic C&GS Collection.