Visibility Trends in Baghdad City During the Period 2005-2014

Abstract

Trends in horizontal visibility for Baghdad city, haziness for the period between 2005 and 2014 were assessed in view of information for daily horizontal visibility. The average (means) of annual visibility were determined for Baghdad as a whole, the results show that the average annual visibility ranged between 8592 m and 6429 m at years 2006 and 2009 respectively. However, the monthly visibility flocculate between 10385 m in November 2006 and 4216 m in May 2012. Analysis in term of linear regression was utilized for describing long-term annual trends in these variables. For the last ten years, there was a significant decreasing in horizontal visibility (-2.1 km/decade from 2005 to 2014). According to rapid increase in energy consumption, the consistent temporal and spatial variations of visibility and haze support the speculation that increased aerosol loadings were responsible for the observed decreases in horizontal visibility over Baghdad city.

Keywords: Visibility; Annual mean; percentile annual