Dust Storm Frequency in Connection with Climatic Change in the Arid Region of Iran

Dust storms in arid and semi-arid regions have harmful impacts on the environment, the economy, and the health of local and global communities. In this study, the frequency of annual dust events in twenty-five stations and five climatic variables including rainfall, maximum annual wind speed, average annual wind speed, maximum annual temperature, and average annual temperature in arid regions of Iran up to 2014 were used to show the effects of climatic change on dust storms. Annual correlation coefficient time series between climatic variables and dust storms were first calculated based on monthly observations. Then, the trend in climatic variables, dust storm frequency, and their correlation were assessed using the Mann-Kendal method. Results indicated that the correlation coefficients had fluctuations in time and are both significant and insignificant in different years that reach from 0.6 to 0.9 for wind speed and temperature and -0.2 to -0.6 for precipitation. This trend in correlation has the same direction with climatic variables and shows co-movement between climatic change and dust storm fluctuations in central Iran. Results also showed that wind speed and temperature have a high impact on dust storm fluctuations and rainfall reduction has an increasing effect on dust storms.