Spatial and temporal variability in dust storms in the Middle East, 2002–2018: three case studies in July 2009

Hamzeh, Nasim Hossein; Karami, Sara; Opp, Christian; Fattahi, Ebrahim; Vuillaume, Jean-Francois

doi:10.1007/s12517-021-06859-0

Cited by 27 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…The study analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution of dust days, seasonality, long-term variation, as well as the factors associated with shortand long-term trends in dust activity. Although previous studies have analyzed the long-term variability of dust events over SW Iran [52,[87][88][89], the current work provides a comprehensive analysis combining ground measurements at five stations with satellite and re-analysis observations and regional meteorology, and also differentiates the local and regional dust events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Variability of Dust Events in Southwestern Iran and Its Relationship with the Drought

et al. 2021

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Dust storms represent a major environmental challenge in the Middle East. The southwest part of Iran is highly affected by dust events transported from neighboring desert regions, mostly from the Iraqi plains and Saudi Arabia, as well as from local dust storms. This study analyzes the spatio-temporal distribution of dust days at five meteorological stations located in southwestern Iran covering a period of 22 years (from 1997 to 2018). Dust codes (06, 07, 30 to 35) from meteorological observations are analyzed at each station, indicating that 84% of the dust events are not of local origin. The average number of dust days maximizes in June and July (188 and 193, respectively), while the dust activity weakens after August. The dust events exhibit large inter-annual variability, with statistically significant increasing trends in all of five stations. Spatial distributions of the aerosol optical depth (AOD), dust loading, and surface dust concentrations from a moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) retrievals reveal high dust accumulation over southwest Iran and surrounding regions. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of the (MODIS)-AOD trend (%) over southwest Iran indicates a large spatial heterogeneity during 2000–2018 with trends ranging mostly between −9% and 9% (not statistically significant). 2009 was the most active dust year, followed by 2011 and 2008, due to prolonged drought conditions in the fertile crescent and the enhanced dust emissions in the Iraqi plains during this period. In these years, the AOD was much higher than the 19-year average (2000 to 2018), while July 2009 was the dustiest month with about 25–30 dust days in each station. The years with highest dust activity were associated with less precipitation, negative anomalies of the vegetation health index (VHI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) over the Iraqi plains and southwest Iran, and favorable meteorological dynamics triggering stronger winds.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Variability of Dust Events in Southwestern Iran and Its Relationship with the Drought

et al. 2021

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“…Dusty days are more frequent in the late spring and summer, with dust storms having horizontal visibility below 100 m most common in June and July (Mohammadpour et al 2020;Salmabadi et al 2020). The number of dusty days also increased in February and March due to the frontal dust storms over the Iraqi plains, with the highest impact on the southwest of Iran (Gholamzade Ledari et al 2020;Hamidi 2019;Hamzeh et al 2021b).…”

Section: Case Study and Meteorological Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the association between dust storms and COVID-19 infection rate in southwest Iran

Broomandi

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Jahanbakhshi

et al. 2022

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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This study assesses a plausible correlation between a dust intrusion episode and a daily increase in COVID-19 cases. A surge in COVID-19 cases was observed a few days after a Middle East Dust (MED) event that peaked on 25 th April 2020 in southwest Iran. To investigate potential causal factors for the spike in number of cases, cross-correlations between daily combined aerosol optical depths (AODs) and confirmed cases were computed for Khuzestan, Iran. Additionally, atmospheric stability data time series were assessed by covering before, during, and after dust intrusion, producing four statistically clustered distinct city groups. Groups 1 and 2 had different peak lag times of 10 and 4-5 days, respectively. Since there were statistically significant associations between AOD levels and confirmed cases in both groups, dust incursion may have increased population susceptibility to COVID-19 disease. Group 3 was utilized as a control group with neither a significant level of dust incursion during the episodic period nor any significant associations. Group 4 cities, which experienced high dust incursion levels, showed no significant correlation with confirmed case count increases. Random Forest Analysis assessed the influence of wind speed and AOD, showing relative importance of 0.31 and 0.23 on the daily increase percent of confirmed cases, respectively. This study may serve as a reference for better understanding and predicting factors affecting COVID-19 transmission and diffusion routes, focusing on the role of MED intrusions.

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“…Sandstorms are devastating natural hazards and one of the main global environmental problems which accelerate the expansion of desertification (Hu et al, 2017;Gu et al, 2021;Yang et al, 2021). Analyzing the temporal and spatial characteristics and the causes of sandstorms can help us better understand their occurrence and development, improving the level of sandstorm forecasting and reducing disaster impact and loss (Gasch et al, 2017;Li, 2020;Zhang and Zhou, 2020;Xu et al, 2020;Miri et al, 2021;Hamzeh et al, 2021). At present, there are a large number of studies on sandstorms, mainly focusing on the studies of meteorological conditions in the early stage of sandstorm formation and in the process of the sandstorm, including wind, humidity, temperature, and air pressure (Shao and Dong, 2006;Amanollahi et al, 2015;Li, 2020;Hamzeh et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analyzing the temporal and spatial characteristics and the causes of sandstorms can help us better understand their occurrence and development, improving the level of sandstorm forecasting and reducing disaster impact and loss (Gasch et al, 2017;Li, 2020;Zhang and Zhou, 2020;Xu et al, 2020;Miri et al, 2021;Hamzeh et al, 2021). At present, there are a large number of studies on sandstorms, mainly focusing on the studies of meteorological conditions in the early stage of sandstorm formation and in the process of the sandstorm, including wind, humidity, temperature, and air pressure (Shao and Dong, 2006;Amanollahi et al, 2015;Li, 2020;Hamzeh et al, 2021). Studies also focused on the significant impacts of sandstorms on the whole earth atmosphere system, such as the change in the atmospheric chemical composition Formenti et al, 2014;Lovett et al, 2018;Oduber et al, 2019), affecting the radiationenergy budget (Shao et al, 2013;Kosmopoulos et al, 2017), the contribution to the acceleration of glacier melting (Gautam et al, 2013), and the adverse impact on ecosystems (Mahowald et al, 2005;Lawrence and Neff, 2009) and human health (Nastos et al, 2011;Garcia-Pando et al, 2014;Goudie, 2014;Soleimani et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of turbulent kinetic energy during the entire sandstorm process

2022

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Abstract. An adaptive segmented stationary method for non-stationary signal is proposed to reveal the turbulent kinetic energy evolution during the entire sandstorm process observed at the Qingtu Lake Observation Array. Sandstorms, which are a common natural disaster, are mechanically characterized by a particle-laden two-phase flow experiencing wall turbulence, with an extremely high Reynolds number and significant turbulent kinetic energy. Turbulence energy transfer is important to the understanding of sandstorm dynamics. This study indicates that large-scale and very large-scale coherent structures originally exist in the rising stage of sandstorms with a streamwise kinetic energy of 75 % (at z/δ=0.2) rather than gradually forming. In addition to carrying a substantial portion of energy, the very large-scale motions are active structures with strong nonlinear energy transfer. These structures gain energy from strong nonlinear interaction. As a sandstorm evolves, these large structures are gradually broken by quadratic phase coupling, with the energy fraction reducing to 40 % (at z/δ=0.2) in the declining stage. The nonlinear process in the steady and declining stages weakens and maintains a balanced budget of energy. The systematic bispectrum results provide a new perspective for further insight into sandstorms.

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Spatial and temporal variability in dust storms in the Middle East, 2002–2018: three case studies in July 2009

Cited by 27 publications

References 62 publications

Long-Term Variability of Dust Events in Southwestern Iran and Its Relationship with the Drought

Long-Term Variability of Dust Events in Southwestern Iran and Its Relationship with the Drought

Assessment of the association between dust storms and COVID-19 infection rate in southwest Iran

Evolution of turbulent kinetic energy during the entire sandstorm process

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