Regional modeling of dust storm of February 8, 2015 in the southwest of Iran

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Abstract

According to World Meteorological Organization report in 2015, the southwest of Iran has become one of the dust sources in the region. And the objective of this research is to study the dust storms originating in this region. For this purpose, based on the weather data of 14 stations, the dust storms of the region were investigated, and the dust storm of February 7, 2015, was selected due to its very high concentration of dust particles (66 times the normal values). For the analysis of source areas and storm paths, the FNL data was used. The regional models of Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS), Barcelona Supercomputing Centre-Dust Regional Atmospheric Model 8b (DREAM 8b), Non-hydrostatic Multiscale Model Barcelona Supercomputing Center (NMMB/BSC), and hybrid single-particle Lagrangian integrated trajectory (HYSPLIT) were used to study and analyze the selected storm. The results showed that the dust event in February 8, 2016, has been the result of the polar front jet stream (PJF) caused by western immigrant system that had been over the Sahara in Africa, the deserts of Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and finally southwest of Iran in making the extreme dust event. According to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data and point models of NAAPS, optical depth was very high. The DREAM 8b and NMMB/BSC models confirmed the impact of the local factors and closeness to the dust source regions. The backward tracking of the model with the HYSPLIT model showed three tracks transporting the dust particles to the region. This software also showed that the dust particles occupied an atmospheric tunnel of 1.5 km in diameter.

Keywords

Dust storms Regional modeling NMMB/BSC and HYSPLIT models Southwest of Iran 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The present article is the output of Climatological Ph.D. thesis of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, entitled “Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Variation of dust and evaluation of its climatic feedbacks in Iran.” The thesis with the code of 96000993 is approved by the specialized committee of the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF), which has been written with the monetary and moral support of this institution.

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Copyright information

© Saudi Society for Geosciences 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of Earth SciencesShahid Beheshti UniversityTehranIran
  2. 2.Urban ClimatologyShahid Beheshti UniversityTehranIran

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