17 April 2023: China is continuosly hit by sandstorms ! Where is this sand coming from and why ? Read to know more.
Beijing and several other provinces in China were struck by a sandstorm and could experience heavier ones. The state media stated that Chinese forecasters have warned residents about respiratory risks and extremely low visibility when traveling.
Over the past few weeks, Beijing's capital has experienced both normal air pollution and an unusually high number of sandstorms. Sandstorms were warned about with a blue weather notice. Red is the most severe weather warning and blue the least severe in China's four-tiered color-coded weather warning system. It was Beijing's seventh sandstorm of the year. In the spring, sandstorms frequently affect the capital city and its surroundings.
According to the website of the Beijing Municipal Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Centre, on Tuesday morning, smog and foggy gray clouds could be seen engulfing Beijing.
Ma Jun, director of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-profit environmental research firm said,“The frequency of sandstorms this year, compared with other spring seasons, marks the highest for Beijing in the past decade.”
Where did the sandstorm come from?
The Mongolian Gobi Desert is where the sandstorm started.
Strong winds gathered up the sand and dust during a Mongolian cyclone, which were then taken southward and eastward at high altitudes and finally settled in downstream regions such as Beijing, causing the sandstorm.
The majority of sandstorms originate in Mongolia, and China is powerless to prevent the dust from crossing the border.
Mr. Ma claimed that the severity of sandstorms was a result of inadequate vegetation growth in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. He claimed that one reason storms typically occurred in the spring was due to wide expanses of exposed sand caused by melted snow and poor plant growth. One of the regions with the highest amounts of sand was along the China-Mongolia border.
“Inappropriate human activities in production and daily life can disrupt arid and vulnerable regions, leading to land desertification and degradation,” Mr. Ma said.
Despite meteorological uncertainty and the increase of other emission based projects , Liu Bingjiang, a representative from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, stated earlier this year that China was sure it could "basically eliminate" heavy air pollution days by 2025.
Mr. Liu added that compared to 2013, China's days with extreme air pollution have greatly decreased.