Temporal analysis of Sand and Dust Storms (SDS) between the years 2003 and 2017 in the Central Asia

Turkish State Meteorological Service, Research Department, Ankara, Turkey

^* Corresponding author: agisik@mgm.gov.tr

Abstract

Mineral dust particles play a vital role in climate and the Earth's energy budget and can have impact on weather systems. It has both direct (dust-radiation effect) and indirect (dust-microphysical effect) impacts on the energy budget effect. The most important sources of dust aerosols are located in the Northern Hemisphere, primarily over the Sahara in North Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia respectively and Central Asia is under the influence of mineral dust. The objective of this study to carry out intensity and frequency analysis of sand and dust storm in Central Asia for the period 2003-2017 and compare the results with global values as well as the values of the Middle East region. The AOD and AE parameters can be used to differentiate between coarse and fine particles of aerosols. To investigate average annual and monthly AOD (aerosol optical depth) and AE (angstrom exponent) for the period 2003-2017, AOD and AE data of MODIS Aqua is obtained from Giovanni website. In summary, for the last years (2013-2017), annual mean AOD is comparably lower than the other periods while the values are the highest between 2008 and 2012 for both Central Asia and Middle East. The results point out that there is no increasing trend in AOD values for the recent years and annual Central Asia AOD values show a similar trend with the Middle East AOD values.