February 15, 2023

EP. 304 — How Does Dust Impact Earth’s Climate? with Dr. Sarah Aarons

Dust isn’t just something that accumulates between our couch cushions. Dust is ALL OVER Earth—there are 20 trillion grams of it!—and it plays a critical role in weather events, climate change, and how we understand Earth. This week, Dr. Sarah Aarons joins Jonathan to discuss her research on mineral dust, and her research trips to Antarctica. Plus, Jonathan asks hard-hitting questions, like: Is household dust really just dead skin cells? Does flushing your toilet make an aerosol mess? And how do you stay caffeinated near the South Pole?

Sarah Aarons was born and raised in Alaska. She is an Assistant Professor of Geosciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

 

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation.

 

Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook.

 

Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com.

 

Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our associate producer is Zahra Crim. Our editor is Andrew Carson.

 

Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com.

Transcript

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness & Sarah Aarons  JVN [00:00:00] Welcome to Getting Curious. I’m Jonathan Van Ness and every week I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious. In this episode, I know that all of our episodes are, like, really good, but this one is, like, so freaking interesting. I literally cannot stand it, cause we’re talking about something that I think is, like, so interesting and I need to know more about. On today’s episode, we are joined by Sarah Aarons, where I ask her: how important is dust? Welcome to Getting Curious. This is Jonathan Van Ness and we have got an episode for you. So let me tell you how it all started: I was minding my own business a few months ago and I scratched my arm in, like, the golden hour and I saw, like, this dust fly off. Which reminded me of this, like, clip from this TV show that I used to watch when I was little that was hosted by Summer

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