Dust in the air eased slightly in 2023: UN

GENEVA: The amount of dust in the air eased slightly in 2023, the United Nations said on 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 report.

Surface dust concentrations in 2023 were slightly lower on average than in 2022, 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 , including several provinces in China, the WMO said in its annual Airborne Dust Bulletin.