5.1 Hazard - Dust Storm
Witten by Ali Naeini and Ali Abkar
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) website:
Sand and dust storms are common meteorological hazards in arid and semi-arid regions. They are usually caused by thunderstorms – or strong pressure gradients associated with cyclones – which increase wind speed over a wide area. These strong winds lift large amounts of sand and dust from bare, dry soils into the atmosphere, transporting them hundreds to thousands of kilometers away. Once released from the surface, dust particles are raised to higher levels of the troposphere by turbulent mixing and convective updrafts. They can then, be transported by winds for lengths of time, depending on their size and meteorological conditions, before being pulled back down to the surface again. As larger particles sediment more quickly than smaller ones, there is a shift toward smaller particle sizes during transport.
The average lifetime of dust particles in the atmosphere ranges from a few hours for particles with a diameter larger than 10 μm, to more than 10 days for the sub-micrometric ones.
Dust Storm Impacts:
Dust particles, especially if coated by pollution, act as condensation nuclei for warm cloud formation and as efficient ice nuclei agents for cold cloud generation. The ability of dust particles to serve as such depends on their size, shape and composition, which in turn depend on the nature of parent soils, emissions and transport processes.
Absorbing and scattering solar radiation, which affects the energy reaching the Earth’s surface.
Influencing the growth of cloud droplets and ice crystals, thus affecting the amount and location of precipitation.
Causing serious risks to human health.
Some infectious diseases can be transmitted by dust.
Many negative impacts on agriculture, including reducing crop yields by burying seedlings, causing loss of plant tissue, reducing photosynthetic activity and increasing soil erosion.
Filling irrigation canals, covering transportation routes and affecting river and stream water quality.
Reductions in visibility due to airborne dust, have an impact on air and land transport.
Reducing the output of solar power plants.
Below you can find some of the Dust Storms that occurred across the world looking from space.
Dust Storm in the Middle East
2022-May-16
Satellite: AQUA, Sensor: MODIS
Date of Image: 2022-May-16, Time of Image: 10:08 GMT
Color Composite: True Color (431)
Region Affected: East Iraq, North East Syria, West Iran, Kuwait,North East Saudi Arabia
Reason: Drought, low soil moisture, Wind
Dust Storm in Iran
2022-May-03
Satellite: AQUA, Sensor: MODIS
Date of Image: 2022-May-03, Time of Image: 09:02 GMT
Color Composite: True Color (431)
Region Affected: South-East of Iran
Reason: Dam in Afghanistan, Drought, low soil moisture
Dust Storm in the Middle East
2022-May-02
Satellite: Terra, Sensor: MODIS
Date of Image: 2022-May-02, Time of Image: 6:40 GMT
Color Composite: True Color (431)
Region Affected: North-East of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South & East of Iraq, West & South-West of Iran
Reason: Drought, low soil moisture, Wind
Dust Storm in the Middle East
2022-April-07
Satellite: Terra, Sensor: MODIS
Date of Image: 2022-Apr-07, Time of Image: 8:30 GMT
Color Composite: True Color (431)
Region Affected: East of Syria, North of Iraq, West of Iran
Reason: Drought, Establishing Dams in Turkey, low soil moisture
Other: According to the GEOS-5 model showing at Windy.com website density of dust was around 1064 Microgram/m3 at 09:00 on 07April2022.
For an example of controlling dust storm sources in Iran see the below poster:
