Statistical analysis of dust storms in the United Arab Emirates

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. Desert dust storms perturb economic activities and are dangerous for human health. Since such phenomena are frequent across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this paper presents the results of the analysis of a data set of eight years (2010–2017) obtained from Hourly Global Surface data (DS3505) datasets from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Climate Data, at eight international airports in the UAE. The observations were classified based on the dust storm intensity in Severe dust storm, Dust storm, Blowing dust and None, and studied per month, season, year and location. The existence of similarities of the events from each site has been tested. It was shown that Blowing dust and None series are not stationary and a have monotonic trend (opposite to each other). Change points are emphasized for the same series, mainly in 2013. Five clusters were built for the monthly series, showing once again the dissimilarities of the dust storm events at the eight international airports

Study of atmospheric pollution and health risk assessment: A case study for the sharjah and ajman emirates (uae)

Dust is a significant pollution source in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that impacts population health. Therefore, the present study aims to determine the concentration of heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in the air in the Sharjah and Ajman emirates’ urban areas and assesses the health risk. Three indicators were used for this purpose: the average daily dose (ADD), the hazard quotient (HQ), and the health index (HI). Data were collected during the period April–August 2020. Moreover, the observation sites were clustered based on the pollutants’ concentration, given that the greater the heavy metal concentration is, the greater is the risk for the population health. The most abundant heavy metal found in the atmosphere was Zn, with a mean concentration of 160.30 mg/kg, the concentrations of other metals being in the following order: Ni \u3e Cr \u3e Cu \u3e Pb \u3e Cd. The mean concentrations of Cd, Pb, and Cr were within the range of background values, while those of Cu, Ni, and Zn were higher than the background values, indicating anthropogenic pollution. For adults, the mean ADD values of heavy metals decreased from Zn to Cd (Zn \u3e Ni \u3e Cr \u3e Cu \u3e Pb \u3e Cd). The HQ (HI) suggested an acceptable (negligible) level of non-carcinogenic harmful health risk to residents’ health. The sites were grouped in three clusters, one of them containing a single location, where the highest concentrations of heavy metals were found

New insights on sand dust storm from historical records, UAE

© 2019, Saudi Society for Geosciences. Dust properties are playing a major role in visibility reduction during dust storms. To evaluate the visibility variations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), data collected at eight stations from 2010 to 2017 was analyzed. The mean annual visibility ranged from 8291 to 9295 with a 7-year overall average visual range of 8.98 km. Results show increasing occurrences in mild to severe dust storms with subsequent progressive decreasing in the mean annual visibility value. Reduction in the annual mean visibility was mainly noted in the central and some northeastern parts of the UAE. Under winter conditions, degradation of visibility extends to Abu Dhabi and other central Emirates. The dust storms occurred at greater frequencies when the wind speed exceeded 15 notes, with a visibility of less than 3000 m