Australian Dust Storm – A Satellite View

October 1, 2009 by pawanpgupta

Authors:

Pawan Gupta, Falguni Patadia, Sundar A. Christopher

Figures:

Legend:

Fig 1. Satellite image showing dust over eastern Australia. Image is taken by MODIS onboard EOS Terra satellite on September 23, 2009 at 00:05 UTC X Fig 2. Satellite image showing dust over eastern Australia. Image is taken by MODIS onboard EOS Aqua satellite on September 24, 2009 at 03:35 UTC

Temporal Information:

Wed, 09/23/2009 - 00:05

Data Description:

The original data for this image can be obtained from MODIS data server at LAADS web located at Goddard space flight center http://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/ Current image is taken from MODIS rapid response system http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and modified using Google earth

Background:

New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland states of Australia experienced one of the worst dust storm in more than seven decades during September 23-24, 2009. The dust storm appeared as a thick orange cloud over densely populated cities like Sydney and Brisbane and affected various facets of life in the entire region. Visibility was reduced to its lowest level and it affected the air, road and sea traffics in the area. Particulate matter concentration over Sydney was at also high during these events. Emergency ambulance service received more than 500 calls from asthma sufferers due to heavy dust. The storm originated in the Lake Eyre basin in Queensland, few hundreds miles west inland of the eastern Australian coast. The storm was caused by huge wind gusts, which carried top soil from the drought affected land. According to the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, wind speeds in the region were more 60km/h due to a cold front that passed through the state on the day before and due to the deep low pressure trough over Victoria. There were certain locations in the region where wind gust reached to 110km/h with light rain and large hailstones. Fallen trees and damaged roofs were reported by state emergency services. Due to this dust storm, Sydney was among the top ten discussion topics on the social network, Twitter.

Relevance:

Dust storm around the world is not rare and they have been observed by several satellites often; but most of these dust storms originate in the world’s large arid regions areas such as the Saharan desert in North Africa, and Gobi desert in China. The dust storm described in this article originated from the draught affected areas in Queensland, Australia which is unusual, rare and huge. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA’s EOS Terra satellite observed the event in 36 different spectral channels. The image in this article is a true color image from three visible channels (red, green and blue) of MODIS, which shows a very clear view of the storm. An arc shaped, thick cloud of dust appeared in the image extending from north east (top-left corner of the image) to south east (bottom-right corner of the image) part of Eastern Australia. According to initial estimates by NSW department of Climate Change and Water, the dust storm travelled 1500 km to reach Sydney and deposited more than 75000 tones per hour of dust into the Tasman Sea during the day of the storm. Particles concentration in the Sydney area was 1500 times higher than a typical day, which is a record in the area. One of the air quality monitoring stations in the area measured 15,400 microgram per cubic meter particle concentration. The high level of particles in the air can trigger asthma attacks in children and the elderly. Continuous satellite monitoring of such events should help forecasting and emergency service to prepare in advance.

Reference:

http://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au

Citation:

Australian Dust Storm – A Satellite View, Pawan Gupta, Falguni Patadia, Sundar A. Christopher, Journal of Earth Science Phenomena, 2009, 14.

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