Dust absorption of solar radiation is not well known due to limitations in the accuracy of in situ measurements. Here we report two new independent remote sensing techniques that provide sensitive measurements of dust absorption. One uses satellite spectral measurements, the second ground based sky measurements. Both techniques demonstrate that Saharan dust absorption of solar radiation is several times smaller than the current international standards. For example, at wavelength of 0.64 &mgr;m the dust single scattering albedo is reported here as 0.97¿0.02 rather than 0.87¿0.04 in recent review. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union