Impacts of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on surface dust levels across the world during 1982-2019

Dust pollution has become a significant concern worldwide. Both human activities and climate conditions affect dust levels. This study investigates the influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), an important large-scale climate phenomenon, on surface dust levels in different regions. We used surface dust concentrations from Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 reanalysis and Southern Oscillation index (SOI) as dust and ENSO indicators, respectively. First, we first described characteristics of the global surface dust concentrations spanning a period of 37 years (1982-2019). Subsequently, we investigated the associations between monthly surface dust concentrations and SOI in regions with relative high dust levels, (i.e., North Africa, Northwest China and Mongolia, the Middle East, and South Australia) using time-series generalized additive models, controlled for meteorological variables and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). In order to capture the delayed effects of ENSO on dust, we fitted the model for SOI with 13 different moving averages starting from 12 months before. The highest average surface dust concentration for our study regions was 306.68 μg/m³, observed in North Africa. The average dust concentrations in the Middle East, Northwest China, and South Australia were 193.18, 113.64, and 77.19 μg/m³, respectively. Our results showed that dust concentrations were positively related with SOI. The associations between dust and SOI were more significant and higher for North Africa and the Middle East. Our results indicated that for regions with high dust pollution, La Niña episodes are associated with increased dust concentrations, while El Niño events are associated with decreased dust concentrations.