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Extreme dust storm disaster in northern China in AD 1523

The dust storm disaster in northern China in AD 1523 was extremely severe. In the present study, the history of the disaster was reconstructed by using historical Chinese documents. Our results show that during the dust storms, the horizontal visibility dropped below 0.05 km, while the wind speed surpassed Scale 10 of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale (i.e., 88–103 km/h). The dust storms severely affected agriculture, resulting in crop failures and famines. The blowing sand of the dust storms buried and killed about 100 people. Such damage and fatalities has never happened in northern China in modern times. Furthermore, the dust storm disaster happened against a background of normal climate and therefore might have been caused by factors other than temperature and precipitation. It implies that global warming may not result in more frequent extreme dust storm events because their occurrence can be unrelated to climatic factors.