{"id":479371,"date":"2026-02-16T23:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T23:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479371\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T23:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T23:15:10","slug":"climate-change-likely-to-bring-more-dust-storms-earlier-in-the-year-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479371\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change likely to bring more dust storms, earlier in the year, expert says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Hebrew University expert warned Monday that dust storms like those that carpeted Israel over the weekend are likely to become more common and start earlier as a result of climate change.<\/p>\n

Assaf Hochman, who researches climate, extreme weather and forecasting at the university\u2019s Earth Sciences Institute, said that Saturday\u2019s severe haze, which sent Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to the top of the global pollution index, resulted from a storm near Libya in the southern Mediterranean, which lifted sand from North Africa and Egypt and transported it at least 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) to Israel as part of a phenomenon known as a sharav cyclone.<\/p>\n

This is a \u201clow-pressure\u201d system that forms over North Africa and travels east along the Mediterranean coast. While winter storms bring rain, these dry cyclones bring searing, dusty air from the desert.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese dust or sand-related storms happen every year, usually between March, April, and May, or in the fall, in September and October,\u201d Hochman said, referring to transitional periods during which Israel\u2019s weather is often unpredictable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, it was earlier than usual,\u201d he went on. \u201cWith dry conditions and enough wind, [the dust or sand] can travel great distances and get to higher elevations \u2014 under certain atmospheric conditions, it can reach around 5,000 meters above ground where there are very strong winds from west to east.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He added that similar storms elsewhere can take dust from Africa to Europe, while nearly every year, dust from the Sahara Desert flies over the Atlantic Ocean and reaches the US.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tView of the Tel Aviv skyline during a dense sandstorm, September 08, 2015. (Miriam Alster\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Hochman said that while Saturday\u2019s storm was intense, it was not unprecedented. He recalled a sandstorm <\/a>in 2015 that turned the country yellow. The Environmental Protection Ministry dubbed that storm the worst that the state had ever endured.<\/p>\n

Hochman said he and his colleagues at the Earth Institute were researching how rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, mainly driven by burning fossil fuels, affect the length of the seasons, and that they expected winters to become shorter and summers to lengthen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpring is expected to start earlier, with events like the dust storm we just saw becoming more frequent, \u201d he continued. \u201cThe Mediterranean area is drying so that there\u2019s more exposed sand and dust. Furthermore, the land is heating up faster than the sea, and we expect more of these Sharav cyclones as the difference between land and sea temperatures grows.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that these earlier, more frequent storms would have implications for Israeli agriculture, public health, and more.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hebrew University expert warned Monday that dust storms like those that carpeted Israel over the weekend are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-479371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}