dust storm days per year รป appears to occur in the region in which desert tends to predominate. It is interesting that is in this same general area that Clements (1963) has identified new agricultural cultivation as likely to take place.
Dust storms, as noted above, are generally seen as an artifact of climactic variations. However, Huang and Gao (2001) maintain that human disturbances to the environment may also shape dust storm activity. Looking specifically at the Maowusu Desert, these researchers examined temperature variations, rainfall, and dust storm frequency. They looked at soil moisture created by winter freezing and summer melting and found that dust storms are most frequent in the spring months and least frequent in the summer. Interestingly, the winter months present more frequent dust storms than the summer months. While freezing temperatures reduce dust storm occurrence throughout Asia, the higher wind speeds of winter lead to an increased frequency of such storms.
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