Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42049728›Full record

ArticleNature communications2026

Desert dust exerts twice the longwave radiative heating estimated by climate models.

Jasper F Kok, Ashok K Gupta, Amato T Evan, Carlos Pérez García-Pando, Longlei Li, Adeyemi A Adebiyi, Samuel Albani, Yves Balkanski, Ramiro Checa-Garcia, Peter R Colarco and 9 more

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

19 authors.

Jasper F KokDepartment of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. jfkok@ucla.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0464-8325
Ashok K GuptaDepartment of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Amato T EvanScripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2812-3750
Carlos Pérez García-PandoBarcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4456-0697
Longlei LiDepartment of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2107-8459
Adeyemi A AdebiyiDepartment of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7091-6872
Samuel AlbaniDepartment of Environmental and Earth Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9736-5134
Yves BalkanskiLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ-UPSaclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Ramiro Checa-GarciaLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ-UPSaclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Peter R ColarcoAtmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3525-1662
Douglas S HamiltonMarine, Earth, and Atmospheric Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8171-5723
Yue HuangDepartment of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Akinori ItoYokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4937-2927
Martina KloseInstitute of Meteorology and Climate Research Troposphere Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
Natalie M MahowaldDepartment of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2873-997X
Ron L MillerNASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA.
Vincenzo ObisoBarcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain.
Adriana Rocha LimaDepartment of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Jessica WanDepartment of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3757-6436

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Although desert dust is the most abundant atmospheric aerosol by mass, its longwave radiative effects remain unclear, obscuring the impacts of dust on weather and climate. Here, using a data-driven analytical model constrained by observations, we show that scattering and absorption of longwave radiation by dust heats the planet by +0.25 ± 0.06 W m⁻² (90% confidence). This is nearly twice the value simulated by current climate models, which omit longwave scattering and underrepresent super coarse dust (diameter > 10 μm). These omissions bias modeled surface energy fluxes, cloud responses, precipitation, and atmospheric circulation. At the global scale, the sign and magnitude of the net dust direct radiative effect remain uncertain, with additional work needed to constrain shortwave cooling effects. These findings show that improving the representation of dust interactions with longwave radiation can improve weather forecasting and is essential to resolve the role of dust in climate change.

Identifiers

PMID42049728
PMCPMC13125314

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.