Dust storms in the Canadian Prairies

Abstract

Although dust storms are quite frequent in the Canadian Prairies, no scientific studies of the nature of dust storms of this area exist, to the authors' knowledge. This work is a preliminary step in depicting temporal and spatial variations of dust storms in the Canadian Prairies. Dust storms occur at least once to as often as five times per year, on average, in the agricultural prairies. This frequency indicates the risk of occurrence of the various impacts of dust storms, such as serious soil erosion. Dust storm frequencies exhibit a pronounced peak in the spring and a weak secondary peak in August. The spatial pattern of dust storms indicates a low risk of occurrence in the northern agricultural prairies and the highest risk in the south central prairies. Knowledge of these patterns in space and time should facilitate the control or avoidance of such impacts of dust storms as wind erosion of soils, crop damage, air pollution, and general environmental degradation. Studies should be carried out to further investigate the relationships of climatic factors with dust storms as well as their linkages with other environmental aspects.

Ten years of aeolian dust dynamics in a desert region (Negev desert, Israel): analysis of airborne dust concentration, dust accumulation and the high-magnitude dust events

“…More reliable data are available for distinct regions as India (Rao, 1981;Littmann, 1991), China (Watts, 1969;Derbyshire et al, 1998), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, south-west Siberia: Lydolph, 1977;Littmann, 1991), Mongolia (Middleton, 1991), the Middle East (Katsnelson, 1970;Yaalon & Ganor, 1979;Middleton, 1986aMiddleton, , 1986b, North-Africa (Goudie & Middleton, 1992), Australia (McTainsh & Pitblado, 1987), Canada (Wheaton & Chakravarti, 1990), and the U.S. (including very detailed information on the dust storms of the 1930s, see for instance Choun, 1936).…”

Diurnal variations of saltation activity at Tazhong: the hinterland of Taklimakan Desert

“…Temperature, atmospheric moisture and soil moisture are other important impact factors of aeolian sand transport. Dust storms are observed to easily occur in winter on the Canadian prairies, and particularly in early spring, as frost action pulverizes the soil clods (Wheaton and Chakravarti 1990), and the aeolian transport more easily occurs in cold deserts because of the aerodynamic drag required to entrain sand sized particles can be 30 % lower in cold settings, as compared to hot deserts (McKenna Neuman 2003). Atmospheric moisture and soil moisture can influence the aeolian sand transport through changing the threshold velocity, but the relationships are complex, because the threshold velocity does not always decrease with increasing atmospheric moisture or soil moisture (Ravi et al 2004;Ravi and D'Odorico 2005;McKenna Neuman and Sanderson 2008;Sankey et al 2009).…”

Transport of trifluralin on wind-eroded sediment

“…A relatively small event occurred on Oct. 16 1991 (Event 1). Two major erosion events occurred the following April, the month in which the majority of dust storms typically occur within the prairie region (Wheaton and Chakravarti 1990). These included a combined event in which erosion occurred on 1992 Apr.…”