Investigations of a Southerly Non-Convective High Wind Event in Turkey and Effects on PM10 Values: A Case Study on April 18, 2012

Abstract

On 18 April 2012, a cyclone originating in the Central Mediterranean caused a southerly non-convective high wind event, gusts ≥ 50 kn and not associated with thunderstorms, in the western and interior regions of Turkey. Dust events occurred because of dust plumes that rose from the Sahara Desert and from the interior regions of Turkey. The particle matter profile (PM10) on 18 April 2012 was the result of dust transport that appeared in conjunction with a non-convective high wind event, which is investigated in this study. The main objective of this research is to describe the conditions that prevailed before or during the event that occurred over airports and the long-range (intercontinental) trans-boundary transport of PM10 in Turkey. The dust transport trajectories were adjusted to determine the trajectories of long-range dust particles and/or dust particles that moved from interior regions of Turkey using the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and by calculating the backward trajectories of airports that experienced dust occurrences. Furthermore, dust RGB and MODIS satellite pictures, CALIPSO images, BSC-DREAM8b outputs, Global Forecast System analysis outputs, and surface chart analysis outputs were used for various analyses. On 18 April 2012, Turkey’s largest average hourly value of PM10 was observed to be 844 µg/m3 at Kayseri 1 Air Quality Observation Station. Consequently, it was concluded that the Sahara Desert is the main source of dust transport in Turkey.