Dust storms are becoming ‘more frequent and severe’ – so are we prepared?

The skies in Beijing turned an apocalyptic orange when the city was hit in March 2021 by its worst sand and dust storm in a decade. 

Visibility fell to under 300 metres and toxic particulate levels were 160 times higher than the safe level set by the World Health Organization. People were advised to stay indoors, and flights and public transport systems were halted.

“It looks like the end of the world. In this kind of weather, I feel that I really don’t want to be outside,” Beijing resident Flora Zou said at the time. 

Elsewhere in East Asia, violent winds swept across Mongolia, reaching speeds of 40 metres per second, close to 90 miles per hour, in some provinces. It was the country’s strongest storm in 19 years, killing 10 people.

Yet this was not a freak weather event – sand and dust storms are becoming “increasingly frequent and severe” across large parts of the globe, according to the UN. 

By 2020, the number of storms reported in America’s Great Plains had doubled over the previous two decades. In the same year, a storm in the Sahara – nicknamed Godzilla – reached record “hazardous” levels. And in 2022, Iraq was hit by ten storms in just two months; a decade ago, it recorded no more than a handful per year.

Even now, in Greece, millions of people are dealing with the fallout from one of the worst dust storms to hit in six years, with those suffering from respiratory conditions urged to limit the time they spend outdoors.

Last year, the UN Sand and Dust Storms Coalition, which works with governments to improve resilience to such events, said the storms were having “substantial transboundary impacts, affecting various aspects of the environment, climate, health, agriculture, livelihoods and the socioeconomic well-being of individuals.”

In the Middle East alone, about $13 billion a year is lost in damages to buildings, powerlines and agriculture, according to the World Bank. In comparison, tornadoes caused $1.1 billion in property damage throughout the US in 2023.

As the number of storms increases across the planet, scientists are now racing to explain the trend – with deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion and climate change all identified as potential factors. They are also trying to understand its impacts on human health.

Then there is the question of whether this phenomenon will come to threaten life here in Europe and the UK. The skies in Athens were turned orange by Saharan dust on Tuesday, one of the worst episodes since 2018.

Is there a future in which London’s skies will regularly turn orange as dust from the Sahara is blown northward?

Lastly, what tools are being developed to combat this threat? Do we have the means to endure the coming storms and minimise their impacts? 

Sand and dust storms are not a new phenomenon. In the Old Testament, it warns that “The Lord will send dust storms and sandstorms on you from the sky until you’re destroyed.”

In Korea, the first record was found in the ancient Silla Dynasty. The people believed God was punishing them with a dirt storm, or Woo-To, instead of rain or snow. 

The storms are formed when strong winds sweep across dry areas without plant cover, picking up a fine layer of dust which is carried to the low-level atmosphere. Winds then can transport them for thousands of kilometres, crossing deserts, countries and even oceans.

According to the UN, two billion tonnes of dust are emitted annually – equivalent to 350 Great Pyramids of Giza. 

Yet explaining the apparent rise in these storms is far from straightforward.

Recent UN studies suggest that at least 25 percent of global dust emissions are due to human activities, with blame placed on agricultural practices, water usage, soil management, deforestation and urbanisation, as well as climate change.

Such activities help fuel a phenomenon known as “desertification” – the gradual degradation of fertile land into arid desert. And more desert means more fuel for a storm.

Professor David Thomas, from Oxford University Centre for the Environment, said: “Any human action on the margins of deserts … that reduces the size of water bodies or which removes natural vegetation, enhances the risks of dust storms if the underlying sediments and soils are fine enough to be picked up by the wind.”

He points to the drying out of the Aral Sea, between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and the draining of the Iraqi marshes by Saddam Hussain in the first Gulf War as examples of human-led actions which have created artificial dust sources.

However, many desert storms – if not a majority – have little to do with us humans.

“We must disaggregate what is natural, and what is potentially enhanced by human agency,” said Prof Thomas. 

“Parts of the Sahara are a natural source of dust – i.e. dust is in the atmosphere for natural reasons, not because of human agency. For example, dry lake beds, inherited from wetter climate conditions in the distant past, are all around the world sources of dust.”

Major sources of dust include the Gobi and Sahara deserts, with North Africa already accounting for 55 percent of global emissions. 

If this latter figure increases in the years to come, that could well spell trouble for Europe.

Yet the continent is no stranger to sand and dust storms. In September 2023, parts of the UK woke up to hazy skies and orange dust covering their cars, and over the Easter weekend this year, another 2,000-mile Sahara dust cloud hit the continent, branded by the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) as particularly “intense”.

At the time, Switzerland’s airCHeck system flagged high levels of pollution: 180,000 tonnes of dust were recorded by meteorologists, twice as much as in recent years.

“The last few years have been really high in terms of African dust storms affecting western Europe, particularly Spain, Portugal, southern France and Italy,” said Claire Ryder, an associate professor in meteorology from the University of Reading. 

The impacts of such weather events on our health are obvious: dust and sand storms have been linked to a wide range of issues, from conjunctivitis and breathing problems to damage to the lungs, heart and immune system.

Of particular concern are PM10 particles.

“These are very very fine, very mobile when dry, and easy to inhale into the lungs. Here they can damage tissues – not least as PM10s are often comprised of small (sometimes microscopically sharp) particles of quartz,” said Prof Thomas.

However, he added, dust incursions from the Saraha over Europe and the UK are still “relatively rare events, so PM10s aren’t that common in our atmosphere.”

Although Europeans needn’t worry too much about the health impacts of such storms, those in northern Africa should be alert to the complications that can arise from repeated exposure to sand and dust.

In particular, there is a strong association between meningitis outbreaks and these storms, experts say.

The highest concentration of the disease is found in sub-Saharan Africa, an area known as the “African Meningitis Belt”.

Meningitis is among the most feared diseases in Africa because of its rapid onset and high death rate; survivors are often left with brain damage or deafness. 

The Belt experiences an outbreak every five to eight years. A particularly severe epidemic occurred in Nigeria in 1996, with 109,580 recorded cases, of whom roughly 10 percent died.

In the Sahel region, the outbreaks coincide with the dry season and taper off from May with the first rains.

One theory is that dusty conditions damage the epithelial cells in the lining of the nose and throat, allowing bacteria and other pathogens into the bloodstream.

This causes the infection and inflammation of the protective membranes around the brain and spinal cord, leading to symptoms such as photophobia, intense headaches and vomiting.

“The two [dusty conditions and meningitis] seem to be linked,” said Prof Ryder. 

Then there are the practical, day-to-day impacts of a storm.

Traffic accidents nearly always increase during these events, a result of reduced visibility and tyre traction on the roads.

Between 2007 and 2017, some 232 Americans died from dust-related traffic accidents, according to the American Meteorological Society.

As storms cause minor structural damage compared with other natural disasters, less emphasis has been placed on their direct effects on world economies.

A recent study found that in the first quarter of 2021, SDS caused losses worth more than $4.15 million in northern China.

“Sand and dust storms can severely disrupt air traffic by reducing visibility, resulting in significant financial losses for airlines,” said Mr Ibrahim Thiaw, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

“They also pose challenges to shipping operations, as ports can be temporarily closed, increasing docking fees and delaying shipments, impacting global trade networks.” 

Other examples include the death or illness of livestock, resulting in reduced milk or meat yield and the economic strains this can bring for a family or community.

Mitigation measures also bring significant costs, including implementing air filtration systems for high-risk populations. 

All this ends up costing economies billions. 

“Just quantifying some of the most immense costs provides a magnitude of how big the dust problem is,” said the World Bank in 2019.

To reduce the economic fallout of these storms, as well as their impact on human health, the UN has urged countries in high-risk regions to consider forecasting tools and early warning systems.

Land restoration – using soil and water management practices to increase vegetative cover – is another recommendation made by the UN. Though Mr Thiaw accepts that the challenge in future-proofing our societies against sand and dust storms is “immense”.

The Chinese government is leading the way in this space, thanks to what has been described as the world’s most ambitious tree-planting project. 

Since work on the “Green Great Wall” began in 1978, more than 66 billion trees have been planted, with 100 billion planned by 2050. 

It’s hoped such a project will halt the encroachment of the Gobi desert and improve air quality conditions in the north of the country.

Scientists in China have also developed an AI tool which could help predict storms and save economies millions. 

The ‘Dust Watcher,’ using data from ground observations and satellite imagery, can predict the timing and severity of an incoming storm on an hourly basis, up to 12 hours in advance. During a trial run last year, the tool made 13 per cent fewer errors than non-AI models.

The hope is that, with such tools at our disposal, societies and countries across the globe will be as well prepared as possible for the storms to come. 

For Prof Ryder, though, the immediate priority should be improving our relationship with the natural world. “Dust storms … should be a cause for concern in general,” she said. “We need to try and treat our environment as well as we possibly can.”

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