CORRELATION BETWEEN SOLAR CYCLES AND DUST ACTIVITY OVER IRAQ

Abstract

This work presents the results of statistical analysis of observed and severe dust visibility in Iraqin relation to the sunspot cycle for the periods 1959-2007 for Baghdad, 1978-2001 for Rutbah and1987-2007 for Mousl, Nasiriyah and Basrah. Examination of each dust series was subjected to timeand spectral analysis based on lag correlation. The result shows presence of a significant dust cyclesimilar to the sunspot cycle. The cross-correlation between the dust and air temperature with thesunspot activity shows a high correlation with the 11year sunspot cycle. Moreover, Fast FourierTransformation spectral analysis for the dust series confirms the similarity agreement to the sunspotvariations.