Climate Change Implications and Use of Early Warning Systems for Global Dust Storms - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 148

Fig. 8.1 Dust storm life cycle (Adapted from UNEP ( 2013 ), Shao et al. ( 2011 ) )
and decadal, variability of dust events, thus furthering the need for more research to
be conducted over longer periods of time to analyse trends of occurrences and asso-
ciated severity (Ganor et al. 2010 ; Goudie 2009 ). The origin of dust storms, whether
natural or human, and how aerosol circulation patterns are affected, need to also be
evaluated to understand the ultimate impact on the global climate (Ginoux et al.
2010 ). With this accumulation of information, more accurate forecasts of dust storm
movements can be developed, the appropriate efforts to mitigate damage can be put
into place and effective early warning can be communicated.
The dust cycle is a dynamic process of emission, transport, transformation, depo-
sition and stabilisation that occurs at both local and global scales on varying time
scales (Shao et al. 2011 ) (Fig. 8.1 ). A thin crust, formed by desert soils, most preva-
lent in areas between plants, helps to stablise the ground surface and create a natural
resistance to wind erosion. The plants protect surrounding soils from wind and trap