UN says dust levels in air dropped slightly in 2023

GENEVA:

The amount of dust in the air eased slightly in 2023, the United Nations said Friday, warning that poor environmental management was fuelling sand and dust storms.

The UN's weather and climate agency called for greater vigilance in the face of climate change, as drier surface soil leads to more dust being carried in the wind.

"Every year, around 2,000 million tons of dust enters the atmosphere, darkening skies and harming air quality in regions that can be thousands of kilometres away, and affecting economies, ecosystems, weather and climate," the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a statement.

The global average surface dust concentration in 2023 was 12.7 microgrammes per cubic metre of air -- slightly lower than the 2022 figure of 13.8, but still above the long-term average.

Last year's slight dip was due to reduced dust emissions from regions including North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Iranian Plateau, northern India, central Australia and northwestern China, the WMO said.

However, average concentrations were higher in western Central Asia, northern and central China and southern Mongolia.

The most severe dust storm of the year swept across Mongolia in March 2023, affecting more than four million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles), including several provinces in China, the WMO said in its annual Airborne Dust Bulletin.

The storm posed "considerable" health challenges due to a "dramatic decline in air quality", it said.

"It reduced visibility to less than 500 metres in parts of Beijing and led to significant disruptions in transportation and daily life, highlighting the need for effective warning systems."