More people are getting sick due to sand and dust storms that are now more intense and frequent, contributor Sean Mowbray reported for Mongabay.
The intensifying storms have exposed many millions more people to dangerous levels of particulate pollution across the world. In some regions, it has also triggered outbreaks of respiratory and infectious diseases.
Between 2018 and 2022, around 3.8 billion people were exposed to dust levels exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) safety limits, a 31% rise from 2003-2007. The WHO and World Meteorological Organization warned earlier this year that “mega” sand and dust storms now affect an estimated 330 million people annually.
“The frequency and severity of sand and dust storms is increasing, and it’s increasing globally,” Aaron Cohen, a scientist with the Health Effects Institute, a U.S.-based nonprofit, told Mowbray. “Sand and dust pollution travels over very long distances. And it isn’t just carrying dust and sand; it picks up all kinds of other pollutants.”
According to researchers, climate change as well as the loss of vegetation and soil health is supercharging dangerous storm systems, which are reaching higher wind speeds and moving closer to areas where humans live.
Hurricane wind speeds in the North Atlantic, for example, increased by an average of nearly 30 kilometers per hour (19 miles per hour) between 2019 and 2023.
“The climate change component is adding that extra [wind] intensity,” said Ralf Toumi, director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at Imperial College London, U.K. “Our simulations are showing that in a warming world, these storms and extreme winds will just get stronger and more devastating.”
Strong winds are able to pick up large amounts of sand and dust and carry them thousands of miles away from the points of origin, closer to where people live, said Sara Basart, a WMO scientific officer who leads the Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System.
Intensifying storms have been directly linked to meningitis outbreaks in West Africa’s Sahel region, which includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, Mowbray reports.
In other regions, storms have also been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, including in places impacted by fire. The combination of fire and wind increases the reach of wildfire, spreading increased amounts of toxic smoke that then causes both short- and long-term public health issues.
Read the full story by Sean Mowbray here.
Banner image: Students in Afghanistan walk to school in a sandstorm during a drought in 2019. Image by Solmaz Daryani via Climate Visuals (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
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