Effect of Major Dust Events on Atmospheric Temperature and Solar Irradiance Components over Saudi Arabia

In 2021, Saudi Arabia, a leading global oil producer, announced its Middle East Green Initiative with many objectives including reducing carbon emissions by divagating the country away from an oil-based economy and towards renewable. Saudi Arabia has a high potential to become one of the global largest solar energy producers, as it is geographically located on a sunbelt. By 2030, the Saudi government targets building eight solar plants across the country which are expected to produce more than 3,600 MW, enough to power more than 500, 000 homes. However, the vast desert environment in Saudi Arabia increases the dust and aerosol loadings in the atmosphere, which affects the performance of the solar irradiance performance of photovoltaic panels due to the scattering of the solar radiation and the dust deposition on the solar panels. In this work, ground-based data from weather stations located in five Saudi cities: Dammam, Riyadh, Jeddah, Najran, and Arar along with data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are used to estimate solar irradiance and its correlation with atmospheric and meteorological conditions like air temperature, wind, and aerosol physical parameters. We investigate the effect of three major dust storms that blew over different regions in Saudi Arabia on 20 March 2017, 23 April 2018, and 15 April 2021 on solar irradiance. It is found that there is a strong correlation between aerosol optical parameters like Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), Ångström exponent, and solar irradiance. Maximum AOD (about 2) is recorded over Jeddah on 19 March 2017, (about 2.3) over Riyadh on 20 March 2017, (about 1.5) over Riyadh on 24 April 2018, and (about 0.9) over Najran on 15 April 2021. Large dust events are found to reduce air temperature by a few degrees in the regions affected by dust loadings. The study found large dust loading decreases the DNI, and GHI components on the solar irradiance, while increasing the DHI component over the cities of Jeddah, Riyadh, and Najran. This could be an indication that scattering from dust particles could play a significant role in the solar irradiance intensity.