Abstract
The dust cycle is an important element of the earth system and further understanding of the main drivers of dust emission, transportation and deposition is necessary. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main source of interannual climate variability and is likely to influence the dust cycle on a global scale. However, the causal influences of ENSO on dust activities across the globe remain unclear. Here we investigate the response of dust activities to ENSO using output from Coupled Modeling Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) historical simulations during the 1850–2014 period. The analyses consider the confounding impacts of the Southern Annular Mode, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Our results show that ENSO is an important driver of dry and wet dust deposition over the Pacific, Indian, Southern, and parts of Atlantic Oceans during 1850–2014. Over continents, ENSO signature is found in America, Australia, parts of Asia, and Africa. Further, ENSO displays significant impacts on dust aerosol optical depth over oceans, implying the controls of ENSO on the concentration and transportation of atmospheric dust. Nevertheless, the results indicate that ENSO is unlikely to exhibit causal impacts on regional dust emissions of major dust sources, suggesting the important role of human influences in igniting local dust availability. While we find high consensus across CMIP6 models in simulating the impacts of ENSO on dust deposition and transportation, there is little agreement between models for the ENSO causal impacts on dust emission. Overall, the results emphasize the important role of ENSO in global dust activities.
Highlights
The dust cycle is an important component of the earth system (Bullard et al, 2016; Carslaw et al, 2010; Jickells et al, 2005; Knippertz and Todd, 2012)
We show that El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) plays an important role in dust deposition over the Pacific, Indian, Southern Oceans, parts of Atlantic Oceans, and the surrounding continents
We showed that ENSO exhibits significant causal impacts on global dust deposition and transportation (Figures 1, 2, 4, and 5)
Summary
The dust cycle is an important component of the earth system (Bullard et al, 2016; Carslaw et al, 2010; Jickells et al, 2005; Knippertz and Todd, 2012). Dust may alter the balance of the radiative forcing of the climate system (Carslaw et al, 2010; Schulz et al, 2012), and changes in dust transport and distribution may feedback on regional climate (Creamean et al, 2013; 25 Evan et al, 2011; Kok et al, 2018; Rotstayn et al, 2011; Scott et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2017). Longrange transport of mineral dust may alter the global biogeochemical cycles and regional soil composition (D’Odorico et al, 2013; Duan et al, 2021; Prospero and Mayol-Bracero, 2013).
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