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Aral Sea has made Central Asia significantly dustier - EurekAlert
<strong>The drying up of the Aral Sea has made Central Asia 7 percent dustier in the last 30 years. Between 1984 and 2015, dust emissions from the growing desert almost doubled from 14 to 27 million tonnes. This is the result of a study by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the Free University of Berlin. The amounts of dust have probably been underestimated so far because two-thirds of it is swirled up under cloudy skies and therefore may go unnoticed by traditional satellite observations, report the researchers at the Second Central Asian DUst Conference (CADUC-2), which take place from 15-22 April 2024 in Nukus, Uzbekistan, near the former Aral Sea. The dust not only endangers the inhabitants in the region, but also affects the air quality in the capitals of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. In addition, it may accelerate the melting of glaciers and thus exacerbate the water crisis in the region.</strong>
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