Temporal long-term variations in the occurrence of dust storm days in Iran
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Temporal long‑term variations in the occurrence of dust storm days in Iran Parasto Baghbanan1 · Yousef Ghavidel1 · Manuchehr Farajzadeh1 Received: 17 July 2019 / Accepted: 22 January 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In this research, monthly data on the Frequency of Dust Storm Days (FDSD) of 44 synoptic stations of Iran during a 50-year period from 1968–2017 were used. Temporal variations in Iran’s dust storms were investigated using hierarchical cluster analysis, linear regression methods, and nonparametric test of Mann Kendall. According to the cluster analysis, five climatic zones were identified with similar trends in the frequency of occurrence of dust storms including: (1) Southeast, (2) South and Central regions, (3) Western regions, (4) Eastern and Central regions, and (5) the Northern part of the country. The results of the distribution of Iranian dust storms indicated that the highest frequency of the occurrence of this phenomenon was in July, June, and May. In the seasonal period, the peak of the dust storms was concentrated in the spring and summer. Moreover, in terms of spatial analysis, in monthly, seasonal, and annual periods, the maximum FDSD in the southeastern and southern regions was much more severe than in other regions of Iran. Moreover, the slope of the changes in Iran’s dust storms indicated that the trend of changes in total monthly, seasonal, and annual periods was incremental, and according to the results of the Mann–Kendall test, it was significant.
1 Introduction Dust storms are solid particles of micro-dust that are formed in unstable weather conditions without moisture, usually in tropical areas and wind erosion zones in arid and semi-arid regions. Wind blowing in the wind erosion cores moves transportable soil particles due to their vegetation limits and makes dust. Today, the phenomenon of dust storms has become one of the major problems in arid and semi-arid regions. Iran is not only located in arid and semi-arid regions of the world which leads to the high number of desert areas, but it is also located in the vicinity of major sources of dust, the most important of which are deserts of Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The issue that attracts more attention in relation to Iran’s dust is that the time-trend in its frequency has changed dramatically in the country. To prove it, it is enough to look at the number of days associated with the Responsible Editor: S. Fiedler. * Yousef Ghavidel [email protected] 1
Department of Physical Geography, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
dust phenomenon during the last decade. Dust events, which have not been more than a few days a year in the past, have become a common and unpleasant phenomenon for the Iranian climate. In terms of climatic conditions, it can be claimed that changes in the characteristics of climatic elements such as increased temperature, reduced rainfall and increased rainfall intensity, inappropriate temporal and spatial distribution of precipitation,
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