African dust: Warning Sarigianni – “New episode maybe even more intense by mid-May”

The professor of Environmental Engineering at AUTH, Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, mentioned the intense phenomenon of African dust that was observed in many areas of our country making the atmosphere stifling.

“We expect to see at least one more episode of African dust by mid-May”

Speaking to ERTNews, Mr. Sarigiannis referred to the connection of the phenomenon with the climate crisis and sounded the alarm, considering that we will now encounter such episodes more and more often.

“African dust is something we have encountered maybe 15 years ago”, he underlined and noted that now “we will have a greater frequency of phenomena and earlier in the summer season”.

According to the professor, the phenomenon “is characteristic of drought and the relative desertification of lands, resulting in the total volume of particles being much larger” and he noted that “wind flows change as the climate changes. This affects even more than the African dust.”

In fact, the professor estimated that an episode of African dust of similar and perhaps greater intensity is expected in May. “We expect to see at least one more episode of African dust by mid-May, which could be of the same intensity as the current one, maybe even more depending on the climatic conditions that will prevail,” he said.

However, he estimated that “from May onwards, things will be much better. Next fall we will have another episode of African dust.”

What causes concern

Mr. Sarigiannis emphasized the increased frequency of African dust as well as the duration of the episode and the volume of particles and stressed “this is a new element and it has to do with climate change”.

“The worrying thing” is, as he pointed out, “the fact that this burden with the interruption comes to be added to the particulate burden that we already have in the major urban centers of Greece, in Athens, in Thessaloniki, in Volos for example, in Ioannina, where the air quality, objectively speaking, is not very good in terms of particulates.”

“We should adapt to this, which means that the National Health System should also be ready to deal with acute cases of people who will have problems,” he added.

He concluded by saying that “we have to do both adaptation actions to be ready to deal with such acute episodes and on the other hand to do basic work really preventively, reducing the level of particle pollution in our cities, so that when it comes a few days that this wave coming from Africa does not come to settle on an already high background of atmospheric pollution”.