What caused the unseasonal extreme dust storm in Uzbekistan during November 2021?

Xin Xi; Daniel Steinfeld; Steven Cavallo; Jun Wang; Jiquan Chen; Kanat Zulpykharov; Geoffrey M Henebry

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ad02af

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What caused the unseasonal extreme dust storm in Uzbekistan during November 2021?

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What caused the unseasonal extreme dust storm in Uzbekistan during November 2021?

Xin Xi, Daniel Steinfeld, Steven Cavallo, Jun Wang, Jiquan Chen, Kanat Zulpykharov and Geoffrey M Henebry

Environmental research letters, Vol.18(11), 114029

11/2023

DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad02af

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Abstract

Abstract An unseasonal dust storm hit large parts of Central Asia on 4-5 November 2021, setting records for the column aerosol burden and fine particulate concentration in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This dust storm originated from an agropastoral region in southern Kazakhstan, where the soil erodibility was enhanced by a prolonged agricultural drought resulting from La Niña-related precipitation deficit and persistent high atmospheric evaporative demand. The dust outbreak was triggered by sustained postfrontal northerly winds during an extreme cold air outbreak. The cold air and dust outbreaks were preceded by a chain of processes consisting of recurrent synoptic-scale transient Rossby wave packets over the North Pacific and North Atlantic, upper-level wave breaking and blocking over Greenland, followed by high-latitude blocking over Northern Europe and West Siberia, and the equatorward shift of a tropopause polar vortex and cold pool into southern Kazakhstan. Our analysis suggests that the historic dust storm in Uzbekistan was a compound weather event driven by cold extreme, high winds, and drought preconditions.

Details

Title: Subtitle: What caused the unseasonal extreme dust storm in Uzbekistan during November 2021?
Creators: Xin Xi
Daniel Steinfeld - Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research
Steven Cavallo - University of Oklahoma
Jun Wang - University of Iowa
Jiquan Chen - Michigan State University
Kanat Zulpykharov - Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Geoffrey M Henebry - Michigan State University
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Environmental research letters, Vol.18(11), 114029
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad02af
ISSN: 1748-9326
eISSN: 1748-9326
Grant note: DOI: 10.13039/100014573, name: Earth Sciences Division, award: 80NSSC20K0411
Language: English
Electronic publication date: 10/12/2023
Date published: 11/2023
Academic Unit: Electrical and Computer Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Physics and Astronomy; Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Record Identifier: 9984482559302771

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