Dust storms evolution in Taklimakan Desert and its correlation with climatic parameters

Abstract

Based on the sand dust storms data and climatic data in 12 meteorological stations around sand dust storm originating areas of the Taklimakan Desert, we analyzed the trends of the number of dust storm days from 1960 to 2005 as well as their correlations with temperature, precipitation, wind speed and the number of days with mean wind speed ≥ 5 m/s. The results show that the frequency of dust storm events in the Taklimakan region decreased with the elapse of time. Except Ruoqiang and Minfeng, in the other 10 meteorological stations, the frequency of dust storm events reduces, and in 4 meteorological stations of Kuqa, Korla, Kalpin and Hotan, the frequency of dust storm events distinctly decreases. The temperature has an increasing trend, while the average wind speed and the number of days with mean wind speed ≥ 5 m/s have decreasing trends. The correlation analysis between the number of days of dust storms and climatic parameters demonstrates that wind speed and the number of days with mean wind speed ≥ 5 m/s have strong positive correlation with the number of days of dust storms, with the correlations coefficients being 0.743 and 0.720 (p<0.01), respectively, which indicates that strong wind is the direct factor resulting in sand dust storms. Whereas precipitation has significant negative correlation with the number of days of dust storms (p<0.01), and the prior annual precipitation has also negative correlation, which indicates that the prior precipitation restrains the occurrence of sand dust storms, but this restraining action is weaker than the same year's precipitation. Temperature has negative correlation with the number of dust storm days, with a correlations coefficient of -0.433 (p<0.01), which means that temperature change also has impacts on the occurrence of dust storm events in the Taklimakan region.

Climatology of dust storms in northern China and Mongolia: Results from MODIS observations during 2000–2010

“…Dust frequency is low from July to January, with the monthly dust area ranging from 1.1 (1.7%) to 3.3 (5.2%) million km 2 . The seasonal variation agrees with the monthly dust outbreak frequency from meteorological observations obtained from the SYNOP report in northern China, and it is consistent well with that of strong-wind frequency (Kurosaki and Mikami, 2003), which is a direct factor resulting in dust storms (Xiao et al, 2008).…”

“…Our results also capture less frequent dust occurrence (Figure 2) compared to the other parts of the basin, which is a benefit of the high spatial resolution of the D maps (1 km). Many factors have impacts on the occurrence of dust events, such as underlying surface, strong wind, precipitation, temperature (Xiao et al, 2008), and even Arctic Oscillation (Mao et al, 2011). In the studied decade (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) in this study, the annual dust area experiences remarkable inter-annual fluctuations, which may be related to the fluctuation of climate and underlying surface state.…”

Exploring the relationship between vegetation and dust-storm intensity (DSI) in China

“…This may distort the true effect of wind speed on DSI, which may be one of the reasons that the Wind variable had no significant effect on the DSI in the SDTZ model. In the existing literature, strong wind is often regarded as one of three conditions for the formation of dust storms as well low ground surface coverage and rich dust source (Yang et al, 2007;Xiao et al, 2008). In the future study, it is necessary to collect the wind speed data for every event during the study of DSI.…”

“…When examining these factors further, this study thinks that both land surface (e.g., dust source and low ground surface coverage) (Yang et al, 2007) and wind speed directly affect DSI (Xiao et al, 2008) (Figure 1). Human activities and environmental variables (e.g., precipitation, temperature) are mainly responsible for changes in vegetation and land surface (Xu et al, 2006;Cook et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2009).…”

Spatial and temporal variations of blowing dust events in the Taklimakan Desert

“…The Taklimakan Desert, located in the central part of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China (Fig.1), is one of the main sources of blowing dust events in China (Qiu et al 2001), and it is also the largest desert in China, with an important role in the occurrence and evolution of dusty weather in China (Xiao et al 2008). Some studies of blowing dust events have been conducted in the Taklimakan Desert, including studies of the spatial distribution and temporal variations of blowing dust events and their correlations with climatic parameters (He et al 1996;Wang et al 2003;Xiao et al 2008), horizontal sand flux of sandstorms (Chen et al 1996), long-distance dust transport of sandstorms (Zhang et al 1997), and the concentration of aerosol particles of sandstorms (Mikami et al 2005).…”