Asian Dust particles impacts on air quality and radiative forcing over Korea

Abstract

Asian Dust particles originated from the deserts and loess areas of the Asian continent are often transported over Korea, Japan, and the North Pacific Ocean during spring season. Major air mass pathway of Asian dust storm to Korea is from either north-western Chinese desert regions or north-eastern Chinese sandy areas. The local atmospheric environment condition in Korea is greatly impacted by Asian dust particles transported by prevailing westerly wind. Since these Asian dust particles pass through heavily populated urban and industrial areas in China before it reach Korean peninsular, their physical, chemical and optical properties vary depending on the atmospheric conditions and air mass pathway characteristics. An integrated system approach has been adopted at the Advanced Environment Monitoring Research Center (ADEMRC), Gwangju Institute Science and Technology (GIST), Korea for effective monitoring of atmospheric aerosols utilizing various in-situ and optical remote sensing methods, which include a multi-channel Raman LIDAR system, sunphotometer, satellite, and in-situ instruments. Results from recent studies on impacts of Asian dust particles on local air quality and radiative forcing over Korea are summarized here.