In drylands, both dust storms and ephemeral salt lakes (playas) are common. Observations using remote sensing and ground studies have shown that these playas can be major sources of saline dust storms. Some basins have recently become desiccated as a result of water abstraction by humans, and these have become significant sources of dust. The timing and amounts of dust emissions depends on such...

iran is facing dust storms every year and frequently. this phenomenon has affected, especially in recent years, various aspects of people's lives. the aim of this research is iran’s seasonal clustering in terms of dust storms frequency with visibility less than 1000 and 500 m for the period of 1987–2008. for this purpose, we used the data of 87 synoptic stations that had suitable spatial d...

In many arid and semiarid regions, saline playas represent a significant source of unconsolidated sediments available for aeolian transport, and severe saline dust storms occur frequently due to human disturbance. In this study, saline dust storms are reviewed systematically from the aspects of concept, general characteristics, conditions of occurrence, distribution and ecological impact. Our r...

Multi-annual dust transport simulations have been performed using a Mars general circulation model containing a dust transport scheme which responds to changes in the atmospheric state. If the dust transport is ‘radiatively active’ the atmospheric state also responds to changes in the dust distribution. This paper examines the suspended dust distribution obtained using different lifting paramet...

Dust storms in northern China strongly affect the living and health of people there and the dusts could travel a full circle of the globe in a short time. Historically, more frequent dust storms occurred during cool periods, particularly the Little Ice Age (LIA), generally attributed to the strengthened Siberian High. However, limited by chronological uncertainties in proxy records, this mechan...