You may have been seeing more deep gold or amber sunsets recently. While very beautiful, the cause of these colours is reason for concern: more and more desert dust from North Africa is making its way to Europe. A recent study published in Nature found an average increase of half a microgram of desert dust per cubic metre of air in Europe between 2012 and 2021.

That's an increase of 10 to 25%, depending on the region. We're not seeing more dust events overall, but the ones we do have are becoming more intense. And that means more health risks.

According to Petros Vasilakos, lead author and researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, we're seeing an acceleration in an already exisiting trend. “We see that the amount of dust has been increasing since the industrial revolution, centuries ago,” Vasilakos told The European Correspondent.

Researchers can see this by looking at dust concentrations in the ice in the Alps, which acts as an archive. It shows that the amount of desert dust in Europe has more than doubled in the past 250 years.

This trend is largely caused by the Sahara's increasing desertification, Vasilakos explained. The African desert is expanding northwards due to a combination of factors, such as climate change, deforestation, and overgrazing.

Besides desertification, the climate crisis also contributes to the meteorological conditions that bring more dust, according to Vasalikos. “Higher temperatures, for example, can lead to higher winds, which in turn can increase the transport of dust.”

Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal are especially seeing large increases. With an average concentration of 5.3 micrograms per cubic metre of air, the rates are more than twice as high in these countries compared to Central or Northern Europe, where the average is 2.1 micrograms.

All this extra dust in the wind is bad news for our health. “Short-term exposure to desert dust is linked to increased mortality,” Julia Fussell, an air pollution researcher at Imperial College London, told TEC.

She also explained that evidence is particularly strong for cardiovascular disease. According to a recent review, the risk of death by cardiovascular disease rises by about 2.5% on peak dust days.

Dust also causes respiratory problems. It can exacerbate asthma and allergy complaints or cause respiratory infections, which leads to more hospitalisations. According to one study, respiratory hospital admissions rise by almost 7% on high dust days.

But it's not just the dust itself that poses risks. “Dust can travel hundreds of thousands of kilometres. During that transport it can pick up toxic components such as viruses, bacteria, pollen, but also pollutants from industrial sites, such as metals,” Fussell explained.

Whether we will keep seeing more dust in Europe depends on whether wind paths and streams change, according to Vasilakos.

We do know that desertification will probably continue in the near future, just like other effects of the climate crisis, which might result in more dust in Europe. “Dust is not as toxic as car exhaust. But if we keep seeing an increase, the health risks will grow. And unlike emissions, dust can't be regulated,” Vasilakos said.