The characterization of haboobs and the deposition of dust in Tempe, AZ from 2005 to 2014

Abstract

Dust storms known as ‗haboobs' occur in Tempe, AZ during the North American monsoon season. This work presents a catalog of haboob occurrence over the time period 2005 to 2014. A classification method based on meteorological and air quality measurements is described. The major factors that distinguish haboobs events from other dust events and from background conditions are event minimum visibility, maximum wind or gust speed, and maximum PM 10 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters of 10 µm or less) concentration. We identified from 3 to 20 haboob events per year over the period from 2005 to 2014. The calculated annual TSP (total suspended particulate) dry deposition ranged from a low of 259 kg ha-1 in 2010 to a high of 2950 kg ha-1 in 2011 with a mean of 950 kg ha-1 yr-1. The deposition of large particles (PM >10) is greater than the deposition of PM 10. The TSP dry deposition during haboobs is estimated to contribute 74% of the total particulate mass deposited in Tempe.

When a Dust Storm Is Not a Dust Storm: Reliability of Dust Records From the Storm Events Database and Implications for Geohealth Applications

“…Some used visibility from weather stations (Orgill & Sehmel, 1976 ), others identified dust events based on weather report codes (Kandakji et al., 2020 ; Kelley & Ardon‐Dryer, 2021 ; Xi, 2021 ), and some looked at changes of PM 10 concentrations or the ratios between PM 10 , and PM 2.5 concentrations measured by air quality monitoring sites (Lei & Wang, 2014 ; Tong et al., 2012 ), while others used ground‐based aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements and satellite images (Lei et al., 2016 ; Pu et al., 2020 ; Tong et al., 2017 ). Some studies used a combination of different methods to identify dust events, such as weather report codes, wind speed, and visibility threshold in addition to changes in PM concentrations (Eagar et al., 2017 ), or a combination of weather report codes, AOD, and changes in PM (Lei et al., 2016 ).…”

Measurements of a Dusty Density Current in the Western Sonoran Desert

“…Dust aerosols originate from arid and semi‐arid regions characterized by extremely low rainfall and substantially accumulated alluvial sediments, are advected around the globe, and alter the climate system via direct and indirect effects (Choobari et al., 2014). It is well known that dust emission primarily occurs from discrete point sources (Schepanski et al., 2009), and oftentimes the high wind speeds required for dust emission are associated with orographically forced flows (e.g., Dhital et al., 2020; Evan et al., 2016; Jiang et al., 2011; Kalenderski & Stenchikov, 2016; Washington et al., 2006), or convective downdrafts, which are oftentimes referred to as haboobs (e.g., Chen & Fryrear, 2002; Eagar et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2008), and which are common dust producing mechanisms globally (Knippertz, 2014), potentially responsible for 20% of all dust emission events in North Africa (Pantillon et al., 2016). Spanning these two categories of high wind speed events are convectively driven downdrafts that are forced by lee‐side–or spillover–orographic precipitation (Gläser et al., 2012; Knippertz et al., 2007; Reinfried et al., 2009), although such processes are broadly considered to be in the category of density currents.…”

Dust Under the Radar: Rethinking How to Evaluate the Impacts of Dust Events on Air Quality in the United States

“…For example, airborne dust is defined in different ways. Some studies define dust based on the concentration of PM 10 (mass of particles with diameters less than 10 μm; Lei & Wang, 2014; Eagar et al., 2017). Other studies have used coarse mass (PM 10 − PM 2.5 ) (where PM 2.5 is the mass of particles with diameters less than 2.5 μm; Hand et al., 2017), or the ratio of PM 2.5 and PM 10 (Tong et al., 2017) to indicate dust impacts.…”