The Storm, Dust storm of 2007 Options

[OWW]

Oh no...This is getting bad:

The new and potentially bleak outlook is a stark shift from the prognosis earlier this week.

The dusty squall has reduced direct sunlight to Mars' surface by nearly 99 percent, an unprecedented threat for the solar-powered robotic explorers. If the storm keeps up and thickens with even more dust, officials fear the rovers' batteries may empty and silence the robotic explorers forever.

Opportunity's energy-gathering ability has been slashed to a dangerous 280 watt-hours-enough power to light only three 90-watt light bulbs.

"The worst-case scenario is that enough dust in the sky decreases solar energy to the point that we have to shut down too many things to save power," Lemmon said. "The rovers keep their battery alive by keeping their electronics alive."

"The reality of the situation is that we're limited as to what we can do from the ground by cutting power use," Callas said. "If it continues to worsen and stay that way, it's a survivability issue for Opportunity. If Mars wants to kill the rovers, it can."

http://www.space.com/news/070705_dusty_rovers.html

[climber]

I was wondering if we have, here on Earth, the equivalent of Marsian's dust storms?
For exemple, dusts coming from deserts that goes very high in our atmosphere where the pressure could be comparable to what it is on Mars?

[tty]

I was wondering if we have, here on Earth, the equivalent of Marsian's dust storms?
For exemple, dusts coming from deserts that goes very high in our atmosphere where the pressure could be comparable to what it is on Mars?

Desert dust certainly can spread quite far. For example a fair amount of the soil on Bermuda is very fine saharan dust accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years. However terran "weather" in almost all forms very largely happens in the troposphere. For example despite the vast amount of salt spray created continuously over the oceans essentially nothing gets into the stratosphere (otherwise the sky at twilight would be yellow from the Na and the ozone layer would be destroyed by the Cl).

About the only exceptions is material from volcanic eruptions and large impacts which gets injected into the stratosphere with consequent climate effects extending over years (dust in the troposhere is washed out by rain fairly quickly).