Abstract
Mineral dust interacts with radiation and cloud microphysics in East Asia can affect local and regional climate. In this study, we found that the occurrences of dust storms, blowing dust, and floating dust over northern China has decreased 76.7%, 68.5%, and 64.5% considerably since the beginning of this century. Based on a multi-dimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition (MEEMD) method, a steady decrease in zonal maximum wind speed (up to −0.95 m/s) in the Northern Hemisphere was largely responsible for this recent decline in dust event occurrences. Then, a new detection technique that combines multi-satellite datasets with surface observations of dust events is developed to estimate the contribution of anthropogenic dust column burden from disturbed soils to the observed total dust. It is found that the percentage of the anthropogenic dust column burdens to total mineral dust is up to 76.8% by human activities during 2007–2014 in eastern China, but only less than 9.2% near desert source regions in northwestern China. However, we note that the anthropogenic effects on the dust loading for both regions are non-negligible.
Highlights
The Taklimakan, Gobi, and other deserts in central Asia are major sources of mineral dust[1,2,3]
We extend the trend analyses of daily dust event occurrences associated with the maximum wind speed and wind direction to cover the period from 1960–2014 using meteorological observations provided by the National Meteorological Information Center of China
The noticeable decline of westerly maximum wind speed greater than 0.9 m/s is found since 2000 near the Taklimakan desert regions, which is largely responsible for this recent decline in dust event occurrences
Summary
We extend the trend analyses of daily dust event occurrences associated with the maximum wind speed and wind direction to cover the period from 1960–2014 using meteorological observations provided by the National Meteorological Information Center of China. We note that a steady decrease in zonal maximum wind speed in the Northern Hemisphere was largely responsible for this recent decline in dust event occurrences To address this issue, the evolution of natural forcing parameters, including precipitation, potential evapotranspiration (PET), and aridity, are analyzed in Supplementary Fig. S2. The mean contribution of anthropogenic during dust events to the annual dust column burden, as retrieved by multi-satellite remote sensing instruments in this study, ranges from 27% to 77% across eastern China, with a minimum value of less than 9% near the desert source regions
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