Transport of East Asian dust storms to the marginal seas of China and the southern North Pacific in spring 2010

The transport of a super-severe dust storm that occurred in East Asia from 19 to 22 March 2010 has been well documented by both model simulations and surface observations. We investigated the transport of this severe dust storm and several other spring 2010 dust storms using model simulations, backward trajectories, and measurements from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite. The model simulations indicated that the emission of dust in spring 2010 was about 35% higher than that in spring 2006 and was twice that of the 44-year average from 1960 to 2003. The dust emissions over two major source regions (western China and the Gobi Desert) in spring 2010 accounted for 86% of the total amount of dust. The simulated depositional flux over the two major source regions was c.2.7-9.0 times that over two marginal seas (the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea) and more than two magnitudes higher than that over the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The mean extinction coefficient observed by the CALIPSO satellite over the two source regions was c.1.3-3.7 times that over the two marginal seas and one magnitude higher than that over the North Pacific. This was consistent with the result from our model, suggesting that this model is able to capture the major features of dust storms. The vertical profiles recorded by the CALIPSO satellite indicated that the dust aerosol mainly floated from the ground to 13 km above ground level over the source regions and above the seas. A multiple dust layer appeared over the seas and the backward trajectories suggested that the dust aerosol in different layers may have been sourced from different regions.