Papers by Dr. Ali A. Attiya
Remote Sensing
Smoke aerosol dispersion and transport have a significant impact on air quality levels and can be... more Smoke aerosol dispersion and transport have a significant impact on air quality levels and can be examined by environmental monitoring and modelling techniques. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of the smoke aerosols and the level of air quality during November and December 2019 under the influence of extensive bushfires in the Sydney area, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. To achieve this goal, air quality and meteorological data were analysed in combination with remote sensing satellite measurements. Meteorological and air quality data were obtained from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and Environmental Protection Agency monitoring sites in NSW. In Richmond the daily maximum average hourly concentration of particulate matter (PM10) was 848.9 μg/m3 at 07:00 UTC on 26 November 2019 and 785 μg/m3 at 07:00 UTC on 12 December 2019. On 10 December 2019, the highest PM10 recorded in the Sydney region was 961.5 μg/m3 in St Marys at 01:00 UTC, while the highest ...
Conference on Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, 2021
Dust storms are frequent in the desert and semi-desert areas including Iraq. This paper aims to e... more Dust storms are frequent in the desert and semi-desert areas including Iraq. This paper aims to examine the types of dust activity and its relationship with some meteorological factors using ground and remote sensing measurements. Dust types are classified into three types: floating/ suspended dust (visibility range > 10 km), blowing/ rising dust (visibility range between 1 and 10 km), and dust storms (visibility range below 1 km). The outcomes of this study revealed three periods for dust activity. The study showed three durations according to the recurrence of all dust activity: 1983-1992, 1993-2000 and 2001-2013. A negative correlation between annual mean precipitation and dust activity was detected. The relationship between precipitation with floating dust and blowing dust were increased in the south area of Iraq. In this area, the relationship coefficients between the annual mean of suspended and rising dust activity with precipitation were-0.13 and-0.39. Moreover, the relationship between the annual total suspended dust event and precipitation over Iraq were-0.298. Furthermore, a reduced direction in precipitation amounts and an elevated direction in air temperature averages through the study period. Any changes in temperature averages and precipitation mean during the long term are represented to be an indicator of climate change in a specific region. Thus, atmospheric factors examined consider necessary to get information on the past, present and future weather patterns of this given study region.
SN Applied Sciences, 2020
Mesopotamia in Iraq is exposed to dust events of different intensity because of adjacent extended... more Mesopotamia in Iraq is exposed to dust events of different intensity because of adjacent extended desert or semi-desert areas. This study investigates the spatial-temporal distributions of dust events (including suspended dust, rising dust and dust storms) in Iraq by analysing dust observations based on visibility from seven meteorological stations supplied by the Iraqi Meteorological Organization (IMO) during 1980-2015. The annual and seasonal evaluation of all dust event frequencies is examined. The findings show that Iraq has been exposed to the maximum number of dust events in spring and summer seasons over the past 35 years. The dust was more active in summer compared with other seasons for the northern region of Iraq, while the south and central parts of Iraq are exposed to the largest frequency of dust storms in spring and summer. The cities near desert areas (e.g. Nasiriya, Basra and Baghdad) suffer from the greatest frequency of dust storms compared to the northern and eastern regions. According to the annual average during 1980-2015, the frequency of major dust storm activity in Nasiriya was 7.8 days, in Baghdad 3.1 days) and in Basra 2.3 days. Suspended dust is more frequent in Iraq compared with rising dust or dust storms. There was a greater frequency of dust events associated with high temperatures and wind speeds in the central and southern areas during summer. All three types of dust events show similar time trend distributions with three periods:
Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, 2018
Aerosol particles represent fine particulate matter suspended in the air. These particles interac... more Aerosol particles represent fine particulate matter suspended in the air. These particles interact with the climate conditions (indirectly) and the radiation balance (directly) of the Earth. Iraq represents one of the aerosol hot spots in southwest Asia because of repeated dust storms that need further in-depth studies to describe and understand the dust activity. This research assesses the spatiotemporal pattern variability of the aerosol index values obtained from TOMS-OMI satellite platforms and compares it with selected surface weather factors to describe the dust phenomena over Iraq during 1980-2015. The results show a significant monthly and seasonal variability of aerosol index AI distributions between the northern and southern regions of Iraq. The monthly average AI data display maximum values during the hot summer months and minimum values in the cold winter months over the study regions. Maximum AI values occur above the southern area during March-October, reducing gradually towards the north, whereas the minimum values are recorded between December and February. The highest values of AI distribution from the TOMS satellite were 2.06, 1.93, and 1.87 and for the OMI sensor were 2.32, 2.27 and 2.24 in June above the northern, central and south regions, respectively, with lower values in December. The correlation between aerosol index and relative humidity, air temperatures, wind velocity and rainfall can be employed effectively to estimate and predict dust activity. This study can enhance awareness and understanding of atmospheric dust activity over Iraq and the Middle East region.
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
Recurrent dust storms represent a significant concern in Australia because of their related hazar... more Recurrent dust storms represent a significant concern in Australia because of their related hazards and damages since particulate matter (PM) has harmful impacts on the environmental, health and economic sectors. The particulate matter may be released from natural sources and human activities. The major part of natural particulate matter is emitted into the air by wind erosion processes from desert and semi-desert areas at the world scale. A huge dust storm crossed over several areas of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, including the Sydney region on 21–22 November 2018 and decreased the horizontal visibility to less than 1 km for 22 h. This study examined the synoptic weather conditions, and assessed the air quality and identified the source and transport trajectory of the dust storm over Sydney using ground and satellite remote sensing data. PM10 (< 10 μm) concentrations were obtained from selected air quality monitoring sites operated by the Environmental Protection Agency in ...
SN Applied Sciences, 2020
The mineral composition and chemical and physical analysis of dust particles are essential to ass... more The mineral composition and chemical and physical analysis of dust particles are essential to assess the potential impacts of dust on climate, environment, soil and health. The aims of this study are to give an overview of the mineralogical and chemical properties of dust storms over Iraq. Also, this study aims to identify potential sources of dust storms over Iraq. The results of particle size analysis showed that clay and silt particulates form an average of 86.9% of a dust storm, whereas sand particles represent an average of 13.2% of all dust samples. The physical analysis of dust samples revealed that low percentages of sand occur in the north region, but they are high in the western and central regions. The results of XRD analysis suggest that kaolinite, gypsum, albite, quartz and calcite were the major mineral dust components. However, lower amounts of palygorskite, microcline, dolomite, illite, chlorite and halite were detected in some station samples. The XRF analysis suggested that Ba, Sr and Cl were the main trace element components in the airborne dust samples. In addition, the chemical analysis of dust samples revealed that high percentages of Zn and Pb occur in the eastern and central regions. The results of HYSPLIT backward trajectories analysis of air parcels revealed that the potential sources of dust storms were the Syrian Desert, North Africa Desert, An-Nafud Desert in Saudi Arabia, the dry lands in southwestern Turkey and southwest Iran, and the alluvial plain, Al Jazeera and Western Deserts in Iraq.
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Papers by Dr. Ali A. Attiya