{"id":33709,"date":"2018-10-30T14:06:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T08:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33709"},"modified":"2018-10-30T14:06:01","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T08:36:01","slug":"how-a-dust-storm-from-3000-km-away-smothered-delhi-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-a-dust-storm-from-3000-km-away-smothered-delhi-this-month\/","title":{"rendered":"How a dust storm from 3,000 km away smothered Delhi this month\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/how-a-dust-storm-from-3000-km-away-smothered-delhi-smog-pollution-air-this-month-4956073\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How a dust storm from 3,000 km away smothered Delhi this month<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) under the Ministry of Earth Science published a \u2018Scientific Assessment of Delhi Winter Air Quality Crisis\u2019, which listed two \u201cExtreme\u201d events behind the smog that had smothered Delhi and its neighbourhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>\u201cExtreme 2\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Extreme 2 was the much discussed burning in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>\u201cExtreme 1\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was a \u201clarge multi-day dust storm that emerged at Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The report blamed this storm much more than the burning of stubble for Delhi\u2019s air quality crisis during that period \u2013\u201cthe pollution contribution of Gulf dust storm on peak day was around 40% and from stubble burning was 25%.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Introduction:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> aboard the NOAA\/NASA Suomi \u00a0NPP satellite captured images of a massive dust and sand storm over Saudi Arabia \u00a0and Iraq .<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers(MODIS<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) aboard NASA\u2019s Terra and Aqua satellites released images of skies over Saudi Arabia and Iraq ,red with a thick blanket of dust.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Reasons:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scarce rain and advancing desertification are the key reasons.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Climate change is the main reason which led to drastic changes in annual rainfall and temperature besides other reasons such as drought, mismanagement of water, and abandonment of agriculture lands.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Highlights of the report:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> According to the SAFAR assessment, the late October-early November dust storm \u201cwas carried by relatively cool winds\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The report pointed out that \u201cAs air temperatures dropped, winds and dust were likely to slowly diminish, but that time, it got into the upper part of atmosphere and direction became towards India and dust affected the larger region of NCR including Delhi. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The strong NW shaman winds entrained an enormous amount of mineral particles into the atmosphere.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Pollution in Delhi:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A high-pressure centre developed above the Gulf of Oman and the strong anticyclonic flow at 5,500 metres above sea level transported atmospheric dust into the direction of Delhi.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meteorologists in India have said that a high-pressure zone over Delhi and its neighbourhood and the absence of strong winds kept pollutants trapped close to the surface.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the second week of November, anti-cyclonic weather conditions were observed in North India, which helped in building up of pollutants in the lower troposphere.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The calm surface wind conditions which do not allow to disperse pollution was due to anti-cyclonic circulation connected with late withdrawal of monsoon, persisting at about 700 hPa lower troposphere over northwest India with its centre near Delhi.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stubble burning, which , the SAFAR report said, was very high and upper air winds become north-westerly with high speed and started pumping pollution in Delhi.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How a dust storm from 3,000 km away smothered Delhi this month\u00a0 Context: The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) under the Ministry of Earth Science published a \u2018Scientific Assessment of Delhi Winter Air Quality Crisis\u2019, which listed two \u201cExtreme\u201d events behind the smog that had smothered Delhi and its neighbourhood.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-a-dust-storm-from-3000-km-away-smothered-delhi-this-month\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How a dust storm from 3,000 km away smothered Delhi this month\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704904030},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}