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...

Dust storms are of interest to study since they are correlated to an increase in mortality rates due to respiratory illness especially in the south-western U.S. With the aim of providing better tools to the understanding of dust storms, we present models for detection of dust storms from MODIS Terra Level 1B radiances, which can be applied in near real time with 1km resolution, in contrast to t...

Electromagnetic wave propagation in arid and semi-arid regions is influenced by sand and dust storms. Meagre information has hitherto been reported as to the effect of storms on telecommunication systems operating in such regions. This paper presents a survey of current understanding of the wave propagation during storms. In this first part of the review—Part I, detailed parametric assessment o...