What determines the size of giant sand dunes?
Daylife/AFP/Getty Images Physicists…have shown…that the size of giant dunes is controlled by the depth of the atmospheric convective boundary layer. More specifically, the physicists have shown that such dunes grow through the accumulation of small superimposed dunes, and that their growth is limited by interaction with a part of the atmosphere called the inversion layer, which confines wind flow around the dunes. The dynamics of dunes are the result of the interaction between the wind, which by transporting sand grains remodels their shape, and the shape of the dune which, in return, controls atmospheric flow. Dunes can take the form of crescents, stars or parallel waves. The smallest dunes appear spontaneously in the form of waves on the sand’s surface, with a distance between their crests of a few tens of meters. Physicists have previously shown that this basic size is controlled by the inertia of the grain, which itself depends on the size and density of the grain as well as the de
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