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On Monday, a bright orange glow bathed the streets of Kuwait like a wildfire without flames. In Tehran, the top of the Milad Tower, the tallest structure in the city, was barely visible. In Mosul, Iraq, a wall of dust erased the silhouette. To the south, the bridges disappeared into the fog.
At least one dust storm broke out in Iraq on Monday and reached Saudi Arabia, satellite images show. NASA data show that the dust reaches more than three miles in the sky, said Hiren Jetva, Morgan State University and a NASA scientist. The dust layer thinned over Saudi Arabia on Thursday and migrated to the Red Sea.
More than 1,000 people have been hospitalized across Iraq with respiratory problems since Monday, health ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr told AFP. The Iraqi government has declared Monday a national holiday to keep people in their homes.
The flights were briefly suspended in Kuwait for the second time this month. Authorities have warned drivers in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to drive slowly. Schools and government services in Tehran were closed last week, and hundreds of people in southern Iran sought medical attention due to shortness of breath and flights were delayed, the Associated Press reported.
Sand and dust storms, known as habubis, have always been a feature of life in the Middle East, a region known for its deserts. Storms intensify in late spring and summer as seasonal winds blowing from the northwest, known as the shamal, raise dust from the Tigris-Euphrates basin and carry it to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.
But experts say storms are particularly intense this year as climate change and desertification increase in frequency. In Iraq, at least nine major storms have hit the country since April. More is likely to happen in the summer, and without major policy changes, it may continue to deteriorate in the coming years.
“We had a lot more dust storms this spring than in the past,” Salam Abdulrahman, a professor at the University of Human Development in Iraq, said in an email. “Each dust storm lasted from one day to 2-3 days. The previous dust storms were shorter. “
Benjamin Cook, an environmental scientist at Columbia University’s Climate School, said three elements were needed to take off in a sandstorm: wind, a source of dust with little or no vegetation, and very dry conditions.
The latter storms in Iraq are due in part to a lack of rain, water flow problems and human activity.
2020-21 was the second driest rainy season in 40 years, leading to a crop failure. Conditions remain bad. In most parts of the country, the storage of groundwater used for irrigation of crops and drinking water is close to its lowest levels compared to long-term records, according to NASA.
Limited water is stopping the growth of vegetation, which loosens the surface for dust storms, Abdulrahman said. He said some locals in Iraq now call dust storms “soil rains” or “landslides” because the winds lift layers of soil.
Wetlands in southern Iraq and Iran, where many people make a living from the land, are drying up.
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Ismael al-Ameri, a research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, said the near disappearance of Al Sava, a salt lake about 150 miles south of Baghdad, would leave a new source of mud, silt and salt for sandstorms. The construction of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has added to the problem, he said, and more broadly, military operations in Iraq since 2003 have also damaged the topsoil.
In Iran and Iraq, storms are also linked to agricultural practices in the region and poor management of common rivers, said Banafsheh Keinush, a foreign scientist from the Middle East Institute’s Iran program.
Conditions causing dust storms are exacerbated by man-made climate change. The Middle East is heating up about twice as fast as the rest of the world, which has warmed by about 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit since the pre-industrial era.
Higher temperatures, combined with growing water problems, are preparing the desert region for more dust storms.
“These climate extremes have been widely reported as clear indicators of climate change,” said al-Ameri, who previously wrote on the subject. “This is combined with an increase in the activity of recurrence of storms, not only in spring and summer, but also in autumn and winter.
An Iraqi environment ministry official said the country’s dusty days had risen from 243 to 272 days a year in two decades, according to the Chief Meteorological Authority. He said Iraq could face nearly 300 days of dust storms a year by 2050, the Iraqi News Agency reported.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Qadhimi told his cabinet this month that dust storms illustrate the effects of climate change and that “urgent measures” must be taken, according to the meeting’s report.
Abdulrahman said dust storms lead to more water consumption, exacerbating shortages. “After every dust storm, people have to wash their house, yard, cars and the trees and plants they have in their gardens,” he said.
The ominous orange skies and sand-covered streets come at a serious cost as workers are forced to stay at home, governments have to invest in response and mitigation measures, factories close and flights are suspended. Dust storms also damage crops and deplete fertile soil. The United Nations estimates that the Middle East and North Africa lose about $ 13 billion in gross domestic product each year due to these storms.
They are also at a price for health. Exposure to sandstorms can cause coughs, colds, asthma attacks, eye irritation and other problems. In addition to natural particles, storms carry harmful pollutants. The elderly, children and people with respiratory diseases, heart problems and other pre-existing conditions are particularly vulnerable, the Iraqi government has warned.
Hospitalizations in Iraq on Monday came two weeks after a storm sent at least 4,000 people to hospital with respiratory problems. Another dust storm earlier in May killed him, according to AFP. Three people were killed and hundreds were hospitalized in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zur in a sandstorm earlier this month, the Associated Press reported. Hospitals were on standby there again this week as the latest storm hit the area.
The Saudi Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday called on people to wear masks and refrain from food exposed to the open in order to protect themselves from harmful particles carried by storms.
Planting trees and other vegetation is a solution. During the Dust Bowl in the United States in the 1930s, the federal government planted millions of trees to stop the soil from continuing to blow across the Great Plains. These “shelters” or “green belts” reduce soil erosion and retain soil moisture.
Saudi Arabia plans to plant 10 billion trees in the coming decades to reduce its carbon footprint and land degradation. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year unveiled a “Middle East Green Initiative” welcomed by the United Nations to work with other Arab countries to plant another 40 billion in the region.
Iran, a regional rival, has spent 450m euros ($ 483m) over the past three years to mitigate the country’s sandstorm hotspots by planting trees, stabilizing the soil, building windbreaks and other measures, according to the Tehran Times.
Iraq has been experimenting with the strategy for more than a decade, planting eucalyptus and olive trees and date palms as part of a plan to protect the central city of Karbala, one of Iraq’s Shiite shrines. But construction delays, lack of funding and neglect contributed to the project’s failure, AFP reported. Some blame financial mismanagement.
On May 10, the cabinet ordered the Ministry of Finance to pay about $ 2 million to implement a project to stabilize the sand dunes, the Iraqi News Agency reported.
Governments in the region have invested in early warning and monitoring systems for sandstorms, Keynosh said.
But regional governments need to take stronger collective action to tackle the problem, she said. “We must be one step ahead of the sandstorms, not the sandstorms one step ahead of us.
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