On the Relationship between Global Warming and Dust Storm Variation in China

The unprecedented global warming is resulting in various changes in worldwide environment. The data of occurrence days of dust storms from meteorological observing stations during 1954-2000 and global warming anomaly from the Climatic Research Unit and the Tyndall Center were used in this paper to analyze the relationship between the global temperature series and the dust storm variation in China. By analysis, it was found that their correlation was negatively significant and that the undergoing global warming induced flattening of the latitudinal thermal gradient results in a weakening of the surface wind strength, which was the possible reason for the decline of the dust storm frequency during 1954-2000.