Abstract
Aerosol index (AI) is qualitatively indicating the presence of suspended aerosol particles in the air. The major sources of these particles are desert dust, biomass burning, and volcanic ash plumes. The AI observations derived from the ozone monitoring instrument (OMI) on Aura satellite were analyzed over Iraq for the period 2005–2018. The results showed that the long-term spatiotemporal distribution of AI was significantly variable, with lower values ( 2 may reach more than 140 days in Basra and more than 90 in Anah and Baghdad. Comparisons of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) true color images and AI for five different types of dust storms occurred over Iraq showed that AI is maximum at the core of the storm and the gradation of decreasing AI was consistent with the spread of dust out of the core. Maximum AI was > 5.5 during summer Shamal storm, > 3.0 during winter Shamal and frontal cases, and > 2.0 for the Haboob case. The HYSPLIT trajectories calculations showed that the dust plume in the MODIS image was significantly similar to the computed trajectories and the majority of air masses were coming from north and northwest.
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