Dust is an important and complex constituent of the atmospheric system, having significant impacts on the environment, climate, air quality, and human health. Although dust events are common across many regions of the United States, their impacts are not often prioritized in air quality mitigation strategies. We argue that there are at least three factors that result in underestimation of the social and environmental impact of dust events, making them receive less attention. These include (1) sparse monitoring stations with irregular spatial distribution in dust-influenced regions, (2) inconsistency with dust sampling methods, and (3) sampling frequency and schedules, which can lead to missed dust events or underestimation of dust particle concentrations. Without addressing these three factors, it is challenging to characterize and understand the full air quality impacts of dust events in the United States. This paper highlights the need for additional monitoring to measure these events so that we can more fully evaluate and understand their impacts, as they are predicted to increase with climate change.

Convective dust events are common in the greater Phoenix area over the summer. These short-duration dust events degrade the air quality and pose a potential health threat to millions. In this study, 85 convective dust events that occurred in July and August 2015 to 2021 were examined to determine their impact on air quality. Seven PM10 sensors were used to evaluate the changes in PM10 concentrations over different time intervals (10 minutes, hourly, and daily). Each dust event had to have at least one sensor with hourly PM10 concentrations >100 µg m-3. Out of these 85 dust events, only 16.5% had a daily average above the EPA PM10 daily threshold, however, daily concentrations were 11 and 14 times lower compared to hourly and 10-minute (respectively) concentrations at the peak of the dust. 10-minute PM10 concentrations were >2.3 times higher than the hourly concentrations. The findings of this study demonstrated that the traditional methods of daily or hourly average underestimate the atmospheric PM10 concentrations and therefore lower the estimated exposure. There is a need to consider shorter time intervals to capture the PM concentrations accurately and highlight the importance of real-time monitoring and accurate characterization of short-duration events to assess their impacts on air quality and human health.

Dust is a meteorological phenomenon that has a strong impact on the environment, air quality, and human health. In the USA one of the most widely used databases of information on dust events is the Storm Events Database (SED). This project aims to examine the reliability and usefulness of the SED as a source for documenting the climatology of dust storms (DS) across the USA. While SED provides information potentially useful for understanding the frequency, distribution, and importance of DS across the USA, our analysis of DS from 2000 to 2020 shows that many DS were missing while some recorded events of less severe blowing dust (BLDU) in the SED were incorrectly reported as DS. Although the dust records from SED have been widely utilized to study dust related physical and societal issues, the limitations found in this study need to be taken into consideration in future studies.

Inspired by Comrie (2021), we discuss a few issues related to dust storms and Coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever). There is inconsistency in the term “dust storm” as used by science communities, and the dust data from NOAA Storm Events Database are from diverse sources, unsuitable for assessing dust-Coccidioidomycosis relationships. Population exposure to dust or Coccidioides needs to consider the frequency, magnitude, duration, and spatial coverage of dust events. Given abundant evidence that dust storms are a viable driver to transport Coccidioides, it is in best public interest to advocate that dust storms may put people at risk for contracting Valley fever.