File:Saharan dust turns Pyrénées (Ariège Pyrénées Regional Natural Park) snow brownish.jpg

English: A massive Saharan dust plume with high values of dust aerosol and surface PM10 is sweeping across southwestern Europe. It has painted the snow in the Pyrénées mountain range (and also in the Alps) in brownish colours and turned the skies orange . This episode had been forecasted by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. Such events have been documented in the scientific literature. For example, a 2019 study entitled, “Saharan dust events in the European Alps: role in snowmelt and geochemical characterization” was published in The Cryosphere. The paper concluded that Saharan dust reduces snow cover duration in Europe. Through a process called the snow-albedo feedback, dust darkens snow making it less reflective, which leads to increased snowmelt over time. These dust episodes also represent a major environmental and health hazard. This true colours image, acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites on 6 February 2021, shows dust covered snow in the Ariège Pyrénées Regional Natural Park in southeast France. Open Data supplied by the Copernicus Sentinel satellites and forecasts from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service enable to provide early warning and to monitor the impacts of Saharan dust episodes and other pollution peaks.