Scientists adjust wind monitoring machines in Kumtag desert in northwestern China on September 11, 2007. [Photo: Xinhua]

An integrated scientific investigation team set up a wind monitoring station in Kumtag Desert in northwest China on September 11.

This is the first time that China sets up such a wind monitoring station at the Kumtag Desert, which stretches about 2,500 square kilometers between Lop Nur of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Dunhuang of northwest Gansu province.

"Kumtag" means "sand hill" in Uygur. As its name suggests, the desert, also sandwiched between two huge mountain ranges: the Tianshan Mountains to the north and Altun Mountains to the south, has the toughest natural conditions in northwestern China's arid region. Home to China's driest and thickest floating sand, the Kumtag Desert is known as China's "Polar of Drought".

The wind monitoring station will work to forecast wind speed and direction in the desert.

The report says that three more wind stations will be established in the near future. The stations will help to tell how sandstorms are formed and how they evolve.