Wind Erosion Under a Changing Climate: Past and Future (1960–2040) Evolution in the Dust Belt

The continuum of arid and semi-arid lands spanning from the western coast of the Sahara to the Chinese deserts (the Dust Belt) contains the most active dust sources on Earth. Understanding how their emissions are influenced by human activities and by natural climate variations is crucial for the prediction of our future climate. This work analyzes the correlation between the decadal variability in the dust surface concentrations in 23 representative sub-regions of the Dust Belt and 6 major climate oscillations. A simple parameterization assuming that this evolution can be considered a linear temporal trend, due to human activities but modulated by the effects of the natural climate variability, reproduces well (R2 > 0.70) the variations in the concentrations at 18 locations. In the western part of the Sahel, concentrations are large, decreasing, and influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO, positive correlation). Conversely, concentrations increase in East and Northeast Africa where the Pacific decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the East Atlantic/Western Russia oscillations (EAWR, negative correlation) play a leading role. In Asia, the situation is more contrasted: temporal trends can be positive or negative, and are mostly modulated by the NAO (in the west) or by the EAWR (positive or negative correlation) in the south and east.