Abstract
Dust particles emitted from high latitudes (≥ 50° N and ≥ 40° S, including Arctic as a subregion ≥ 60° N), have a potentially large local, regional, and global significance to climate and environment as short-lived climate forcers, air pollutants and nutrient sources. To understand the multiple impacts of the High Latitude Dust (HLD) on the Earth systems, it is foremost to identify the geographic locations and characteristics of local dust sources. Here, we identify, describe, and quantify the Source Intensity (SI) values using the Global Sand and Dust Storms Source Base Map (G-SDS-SBM), for sixty-four HLD sources included in our collection in the Northern (Alaska, Canada, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, Sweden, and Russia) and Southern (Antarctica and Patagonia) high latitudes. Activity from most of these HLD dust sources show seasonal character. The environmental and climatic effects of dust on clouds and climatic feedbacks, atmospheric chemistry, marine environment, and cryosphere-atmosphere feedbacks at high latitudes are discussed, and regional-scale modelling of dust atmospheric transport from potential Arctic dust sources is demonstrated. It is estimated that high latitude land area with higher (SI ≥ 0.5), very high (SI ≥ 0.7) and the highest potential (SI ≥ 0.9) for dust emission cover >1 670 000 km2, >560 000 km2, and >240 000 km2, respectively. In the Arctic HLD region, land area with SI ≥ 0.5 is 5.5 % (1 035 059 km2), area with SI ≥ 0.7 is 2.3 % (440 804 km2), and with SI ≥ 0.9 it is 1.1 % (208 701 km2). Minimum SI values in the north HLD region are about three orders of magnitude smaller, indicating that the dust sources of this region are highly dependable on weather conditions. In the south HLD region, soil surface conditions are favourable for dust emission during the whole year. Climate change can cause decrease of snow cover duration, retrieval of glaciers, permafrost thaw, and increase of drought and heat waves intensity and frequency, which all lead to the increasing frequency of topsoil conditions favourable for dust emission and thereby increasing probability for dust storms. Our study provides a step forward to improve the representation of HLD in models and to monitor, quantify and assess the environmental and climate significance of HLD in the future.
Highlights
Mineral dust is often associated with hot, subtropical deserts, but importance of dust sources in the cold high latitudes (≥ 50 °N and ≥ 40 °S, including Arctic as a subregion ≥ 60 °N) has recently increased (Arnalds et al, 2016; Bachelder et al, 2020; 65 Boy et al, 2019; Bullard et al, 2016; Cosentino et al, 2020; Gasso and Torres, 2019; Groot Zwaafting et al, 2016, 2017; IPCC, 2019; Kavan et al, 2018, 2020a,b; Ranjbar et al, 2020; Sanchez-Marroqin et al, 2020; Tobo et al, 2019)
Mineral dust is transported from local high latitude dust (HLD) and low latitude dust (LLD) sources to high latitudes (Crocchianti et al, 2021; Groot Zwaafting et al, 2016, 2017; Meinander et al, 2021; Moroni et al, 2018; Varga et al, 2021), where local High Latitude Dust (HLD) dust emissions are increasingly being recognized as a driver for local climate, bio productivity and air quality
We identified 64 new HLD sources and their observations and source characteristics
Summary
Mineral dust is often associated with hot, subtropical deserts, but importance of dust sources in the cold high latitudes (≥ 50 °N and ≥ 40 °S, including Arctic as a subregion ≥ 60 °N) has recently increased (Arnalds et al, 2016; Bachelder et al, 2020; 65 Boy et al, 2019; Bullard et al, 2016; Cosentino et al, 2020; Gasso and Torres, 2019; Groot Zwaafting et al, 2016, 2017; IPCC, 2019; Kavan et al, 2018, 2020a,b; Ranjbar et al, 2020; Sanchez-Marroqin et al, 2020; Tobo et al, 2019). Dust produced in high latitude and cold climate environments (Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, Alaska, Canada, Antarctica, New Zealand, and Patagonia) can have regional and global significance (Bullard et al, 2016). General lack of both observational and modelling studies results in poor HLD monitoring and predicting. Bullard et al (2016) summarized natural HLD sources 85 to cover over 500 000 km and to produce particulate matter of ca. 100 Mt dust per year
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
