Dust Events in the Western Parts of Iran and the Relationship with Drought Expansion over the Dust-Source Areas in Iraq and Syria

Abstract

The most famous deserts exist in subtropical regions which is the direct outcome of insufficient precipitation and high temperatures. The Middle East deserts are subjected often to dust, which reduces horizontal visibility to 5 km , and sometimes even to less than 100 m . The severe and prolong drought recently afflicting the west Asia region has been suggested to be instrumental in producing an increased output of dust into the atmosphere from the region. Regarding the increasing of dust events over the west of Iran with the external origin in the recent decade (from 2000 to present), so the main dust-source areas over Iraq and Syria have been detected using the dust-source map of the southwest of Asia, satellite images and soil type maps. We considered the relationship between the increasing of dust events in the western of Iran and drought expansion over the main dust-production areas during the recent decade. Dust frequency data series, and drought variables which include the VHI (vegetation health index), precipitation and temperature data series in long-term and monthly scales have been monitored and compared. And then we used the correlation analysis that indicated the significant proximity between the dust events and droughts/dryness in a yearly scale and also during the warm season (May to Aug). Meantime the derived results from the T-student test for the aforementioned data series confirm the fact that the droughts are parallel to the increasing of dust events from 1996 to 2011 (especially in the recent decade). We found that the recent droughts in the external dust source areas had the remarkable potential to increase the dust events in the west of Iran .