Climatology of dust distribution over West Asia from homogenized remote sensing data

Autor(en)

Seyed Omid Nabavi, Leopold Haimberger, Cyrus Samimi

Abstrakt

In the past decade, West Asia has witnessed more frequent and intensified dust storms affecting Iran and Persian Gulf countries. Employing a varying threshold that takes into account systematic differences between TOMS and OMI data, TOMS-OMI Aerosol Index data are used to identify long-term changes in the horizontal distribution of dust storms in West Asia from 1980 to present. The northwest of Iraq and east of Syria are identified as emerging dusty areas, whereas east of Saudi Arabia and southeast of Iraq are identified as permanent dusty areas, including both dust sources and affected areas. Whereas the frequency of dust events increased slightly in the permanent dusty areas, it increased markedly in the emerging dusty areas. As expected, the frequency of dust events is highest in June and July.The dust source areas are identified as the Iraq-Saudi Arabia boundary region and (recently) the northwest of Iraq, using MODIS deep blue aerosol optical depth data. Subsequently, a lagged correlation was implemented between identified dust sources and whole West Asia to determine the main paths and receptors of intense dust storms. Accordingly, southwest of Iran and Persian Gulf countries were determined as main receptors of summertime dust storms in West Asia. During spring, dust storms mostly hit the northern half of the region and reach to the Caspian Sea. Analyzing atmospheric patterns, Shamal and Frontal patterns were found as dominant atmospheric circulations simultaneous with summertime and springtime dust storms, respectively.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Meteorologie und Geophysik

Externe Organisation(en)

Universität Bayreuth

Journal

Aeolian Research

Band

21

Seiten

93–107

Anzahl der Seiten

15

ISSN

1875-9637

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeolia.2016.04.002

Publikationsdatum

06-2016

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

105906 Umweltgeowissenschaften, 105206 Meteorologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Earth-Surface Processes, Geology

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/climatology-of-dust-distribution-over-west-asia-from-homogenized-remote-sensing-data(23c812be-8325-4fb6-a46b-68c798135129).html