You might find the following new paper, and references therein, of interest:

Rashki, A.R., D.G. Kaskaoutis, A.S. Goudie, R.A. Kahn, 2013. Dryness of ephemeral lakes and consequences for dust activity: the case of the Hamoun drainage basin, southeastern Iran. Science of the Total Environment, in press.

Thank you very much for your reference. Is there any possibility that you could share your article once published by emailing a PDF copy? Can you share what some of your conclusions were? More references to my Dust Cloud studies below.

http://www.ecoseeds.com/2012drought.html http://www.ecoseeds.com/2012floods.html

http://www.ecoseeds.com/floods.html (2010)

http://www.ecoseeds.com/floods2.html (2011)

Is this article helpful:

Q.-L. Min et al.: Mineral dust altering cloud microphysics and precipitationAtmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 3223–3231, 2009 (www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/3223/2009/)?

Yes, I have interest in the topic and my area of interest is the role of dust from Arabian region entering NW India and influencing SW Monsoon rains. I do not know about its role over 5000 years!!. may be paleoclimatic studies would help. Thanks

Thank you Ralph for sharing our article. This study has recently published in STOTEN as: A. Rashki, D.G. Kaskaoutis, A.S. Goudie, R.A. Kahn, 2013. Dryness of ephemeral lakes and consequences for dust activity: the case of the Hamoun drainage basin, southeastern Iran. Science of the Total Environment, 463–464, 552–564.

I really do not know any study associating dust clouds or even specific case studies of dust storms from Middle East, Arabia and south Asia to the global climate or even SE Asian monsoon. This is a complicated phenomenon, since dust storms may influence weather conditions and monsoon onset and, on the other hand, anomalous weather conditions (prolonged droughts) may enhance dust activity and dust-aerosol lifetime over northern Arabian Sea and northern India. For the latter a recent study has been published in JGR (Kaskaoutis et al., 2012 “Influence of anomalous dry conditions on aerosols over India: transport, distribution and properties. J. Geophysical Research, 117, D09106, doi:10.1029/2011JD017314.”

Another recently published work “Abish and Mohanakumar, 2013 Absorbing aerosol variability over the Indian subcontinent and its increasing dependence on ENSO, Global Planetary Change, 106, 13-19” associates the dust aerosols via Aerosol Index with ENSO, showing larger accumulation of dust-aerosols (enhanced AI values) over south Asia during the El-Nino years compared to La-Nina years.

The weather systems, meridional synoptic circulation and anomalies from the mean climatology seem to affect the dust exposures from Arabian Peninsula and from the Sistan Basin (Iran-Afghanistan borders). This issue is under investigation by me, Alireza Rashi et al. However, I cannot say that these limited in spatial coverage dust storms can affect the global climate, may be they have influence on the Indian monsoon, i.e. the dipole of high and low pressure systems developed over Arabian Sea during early monsoon.

At any case, all the above need further investigation and I’ll be happy to contribute in any work on such phenomena.

On the above, I tried to briefly summarize my current knowledge on dust-weather interactions over south Asia. For any future conversation you may write me via email at [email protected]

Kind Regards

Dimitris Kaskaoutis

Assistant Professor

Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, India

in addition of weather impact, we shouldn't forget the fertilisation effect, for all sector affected by the dust cloud

this may even have an effect on Alluviums, which can impact river biosphere and shape

Fertilization of sediments and alluvial deposits in the northern Sistan region covered by dry-bed lakes (Hamoun) and their impacts on dust storms, ecosystems, biosphere, etc is well discussed in the recent works by Rashki et al. (Science of the Total Environment, 2013) and Sharifikia (Natural Hazards, 2012).

I have recently been involved in this activitiy. A manuscript is in review as of now (for Nature Geoscience journal). I shall update on it once its accepted there or anywhere else. In the mean time, some information could be obtained here (very brief though),

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFM.A31F0157V

I shall update of detailed results once the paper is accepted for publication.

Here is the pdf version: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/3223/2009/acp-9-3223-2009.pdf

Thanks for your reply, and I will look for your book. Today, anyone can monitor the daily Pakistan-Arabia Dust Cloud global weather impacts from the images produced by NAAPS here in California, at http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/shared-bin/display_image.cgi?URL=/aerosol_web/globaer/ops_01/india/current.gif and comparing it to the clouds at http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/comp/latest_cmoll.gif or the IR cloud images at http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/indian/images/xxirmet5n.GIF, which you could not do until only a few years ago.

This study will be quite interesting as I have not come across any such study even though environmental impact of dust clouds originating from desert dust carried by the westerly winds to Indian sub-continent are aplenty. I personally feel that evaluating its impact on monsoon rainfall in the Indian sub-continent will be a very important work. Changes in temperature and rainfall patterns over this region are well documented. In addition to that decline in horizontal surface visibility, sunshine duration, surface wind speed and pan-evaporation are also reported. These atmospheric parameters are linked to atmospheric opacity indirectly implying increase in aerosol load over India. Now the overall impact of this dust on monsoon variability will be worth waiting.

maybe prof. Earle Williams can help you. Look this paper: http://olympic.atmos.colostate.edu/AT620/papers/Williams_2008_Atmospheric-Research.pdf

regards,

Rosangela

Thanks for all of the replies so far. What I am curious about, about the research by James DeMeo, is that the NAAPS worldwide atmospheric dust imaging is fairly new, so how were you able to piece together the impact of the atmospheric dust on a global scale, and what tools were available in the 1980s to put the big picture together?

I have posted an article that I wrote: The Dust Cloud that eats Cyclones and causes Droughts and Floods that is in my publications file on Researchgate, or you can download the article directly from http://www.ecoseeds.com/dust-cloud-eats-cyclones.pdf

Thank you very much for everyone's replies so far. The regreening potential of these arid areas that you mention, I discuss this possibility in http://www.ecoseeds.com/cool.html. Maybe there could be an economic incentive to pay the herders to keep the native grasses in the soil, and pay them with the receipts from carbon credits that are sold to nations that need them? Arid land grasses are great carbon sequestering plants, and the carbon stays in the soil for a long time.

Here is our paper i discussed in this thread a long time back.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo2107.html

Today, October 10, Hudhud is turning to the east, and I am posting my predicted storm track, which is very different than the other computer storm tracks, when I am adding the effect of the Dust Cloud plus the hot ocean water around Bangladesh, may cause Hudhud to run along the India coastline and hit Bangladesh full force?

Update of Hudhud Oct. 12--the cyclone eye did not move to the north or east, but many of the rain clouds did, when the Dust Cloud formed a wall and pocket and stalled the cyclone from moving westward.  The leading edge of the Dust Cloud is acting like a cheese grater, shaving off the energy of the cyclone.  Since the leading edge of the Dust Cloud is holding its ground against the cyclone, much of western India will probably not see any rainfall, wherever the Dust Cloud persists. 

To view the battle, where the cyclone HUDHUD lost against the Dust Cloud, go to the Colorado State web page at http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/products/tc_realtime/archive.asp?product=16kmgwvp&storm_identifier=IO032014 and watch the foot of the Dust Cloud squash the cyclone like stepping on an egg.