2011 Pakistan Floods caused by dust
and the lack of atmospheric dust:
Dust Cloud and rain cloud images from
July to September.
Copyright © 2012 by Craig C. Dremann, The Reveg
Edge, P.O. Box 361, Redwood City, CA 94064 (650) 325-7333.
Images from the US Navy NRL/Monterey Aerosol Page and the
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center
at https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/comp/latest_cmoll.gif
Each summer, a cloud of atmospheric dust acts as
a wall against the monsoonal moisture, and keeps the moisture
bottled up over India and from raining over western India to eastern
Africa, as you can see from the Dust Surface Concentration daily
images from the US Navy NRL/Monterey Aerosol Page at https://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/aerosol/index_frame.html.
However, in July and from mid-August to September 2011, the wall
of the Dust Cloud over Pakistan fell, allowing the monsoonal moisture
to fall in torrential rains, with devistating consequences.
Also note that the monsoon moisture caused other
flood events outside of Pakistan in 2011: August 29 in Yemen and
KSA, then throughout November in Oman, Yemen and the KSA.
By monitoring the atmospheric dust, the lack of
dust over certain areas, may help predict future flood events.
Also, a positive effect could be, by controlling the atmopheric
dust over these arid regions, may benefit the people living there,
by helping to increase the annual rainfall.
You can see in the July 26-27 images, when the Dust Cloud
moves away from Pakistan, if the monsoon moisture is bumping along
that leading edge, that country becomes vulnerable to floods.
Again in August and September 2011, the Dust Cloud leaves
Pakistan when the monsoon moisture is pressing on the Dust Cloud's
leading edge, and makes the country vulnerable to floods.
The Dust Cloud puts the entire country of Pakistan on the knife's
edge, balanced each year between severe drought or torrential
rains.
See also https://www.ecoseeds.com/GONU.html
for the interactions between the Cyclone GONU and the dust from
Arabia, and https://www.ecoseeds.com/cool.html
for the interactions of the Arabian rainfall, dust, vegetation,
barometric pressure and dew point.
Updated December 20, 2022 - Go to The
Reveg Edge website