Climatic analyses on increasing dust storm frequency in the springs of 2000 and 2001 in Inner Mongolia

Abstract

To study the climatic contribution to dust storm increases in Inner Mongolia in recent years, an analysis has been conducted of such factors in the last 40 years as annual and spring (March-May) precipitation, temperature, cold waves and strong gusty winds. In addition, such factors have been studied statistically regarding their impact upon atmospheric circulation with regard to the zonal circulation of Asia, the deep trough over East Asia and the geopotential height of Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. This study shows that the increased occurrences of dust storms likely result from a decrease in annual precipitation during 1999-2001; the precipitation recorded proved to be constantly below average, especially in spring. In addition, warmer temperatures with frequent cold-air outbreaks created unstable atmospheric stratification, thus leading to more gales and subsequently, more dust storms. In the springs of 2000 and 2001, large-scale atmospheric circulations provided the conditions for increased occurrences of dust storms due to stronger zonal circulation and a more westerly positioned trough over East Asia that became more intense in the winters. Furthermore, geopotential height over the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau seems to have an opposite trend as against dust storm frequency tendency. El Niño-southern oscillation activity might be an indirect factor.

Aerosol's optical and physical characteristics and direct radiative forcing during a shamal dust storm, a case study

“…9a-d) reveal high AOD mostly concentrated along the eastern coast of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. The TOMS-derived aerosol index (AI) is another indicator of dust loading in the atmospheric column (Torres et al, 1998), which has been used extensively to identify source regions of dust around the globe (Goudie and Middleton, 2001Middleton, , 2006Prospero et al, 2002;Ginoux and Torres, 2003;Giles, 2005). TOMS AI for both days of interest is shown in Table 2.…”

“…Furthermore, radiative forcing by dust particles modulate the low-level jet resulting in a diurnal variation of dust emission over arid and semi-arid regions (Alizadeh Choobari et al, 2013). A lot of ground-based and airborne measurement campaigns mainly in the African, Mediterranean and Asian regions have been conducted in recent years to analyze the optical and physical properties of dust aerosols (Sabbah et al, 2001;Ahn et al, 2007;Heinold et al, 2008;Kaskaoutis et al, 2008;McConnell et al, 2008;Osborne et al, 2008;Ansmann et al, 2011;Haywood et al, 2011), the frequency of dust outbreaks (Goudie and Middleton, 1992;Gao et al, 2003;Kutiel andFruman 2003, Rezazadeh et al, 2013) and their sources and transport range (Youlin et al, 2002;El-Askary et al, 2003, Washington et al, 2003Xuana et al, 2004;Tsolmon et al, 2008;Rashki et al, 2012;Notaro et al, 2013). Several case studies of dust outbreaks have been conducted in which direct radiative forcing at the surface and at top of the atmosphere (TOA) have been calculated using ground-based and satellite-based data (Xu et al, 2003;Costa et al, 2006;Prasad et al, 2007;Di Sarra et al, 2008;Markowicz et al, 2008;Pandithurai et al, 2008;Di Biagio et al, 2010;Lemaître et al, 2010;Park et al, 2010;Sharma et al, 2012).…”

The impact of channel effect on Asian dust transport dynamics: a case in southeastern Asia

“…Furthermore, we employed the WRF/Chem (Ver. 3.2) (Grell et al, 2005) modeling system to identify the long-range transport associated with the dust episode over northern China in this study. The meteorological initial and boundary conditions for WRF/Chem were obtained from National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) 0.5 • × 0.5 • analysis data sets (26 vertical levels) at a 6 h interval.…”

“…Over East Asia, the frequent outbreak of Asian dust following the continental outflow during spring is one of the largest environmental concerns in the region; for areas such as Japan (e.g. Kanayama et al, 2002;Uematsu et al, 2002;Uno et al, 2001Uno et al, , 2008Uno et al, , 2009, Korea (Chun et al, 2001;In and Park, 2003;Kim et al, 2005), Taiwan (Lin et al, 2004(Lin et al, , 2005(Lin et al, , 2007a and even as far south as Hong Kong (Gao et al, 2003;Fang et al, 1999;Wai and Tanner, 2005). Especially Japan and Korea are frequently affected by the heavy dust events as they are located just downwind of the strong westerly winds that prevail during the dust season.…”

Adverse effects of inhaled sand dust particles on the respiratory organs of sheep and goats exposed to severe sand storms in Mongolia

“…The frequency of sand storms has increased with recent significant climate changes in Mongolia [25], resulting in growing concern for the health of exposed inhabitants and animals. This study aimed to investigate the effects of sand dust particles on the respiratory organs, including the lungs and tracheobronchial lymph nodes, of sheep and goats exposed to severe sand storms in Mongolia.…”