A research study has shown that sand dunes can ‘breathe’ water vapour.
The decade-long research project to analyse the desert in the Gulf showed that sand dunes exchange air with the environment around them which can help the growth of microorganisms inside the dune. The research was led by Prof Michel Louge, of Cornell University in the US.
The researchers developed an ultra-sensitive probe that could detect the temperature and moisture on the surface of sand grains.
After plunging into a dune in the Qatar desert, the instrument was able to scan the temperature, radiation, and moisture in its surroundings on a millimeter-scale resolution in just 20 seconds.
“Because the probe is so precise, it could measure how the moisture changes with time and space. We could measure, for the first time, the flux of the moisture going in and out of the sand dune,” Prof Louge said.
The data in Qatar found that when the wind blew over the surface of a dune it created imbalances in the air pressure that resulted in weak air currents and “evanescent”, or fleeting, waves of moisture passing down through the dune.
