Asian Dust Deposition in East Asia during the Spring and Autumn 2002

摘要

Asian dust is a mineral aerosol frequently originating in the Gobi desert, Sand desert, Loess plateau and barren mixed soil in Mongolia and northern China during the spring season (Chun et al. 2001a; In and Park 2002; Park and In 2003). In recent years, more intense and frequent dust storms in East Asia have increased with the desertification and transported over the Pacific (Park 2002; Chun et al. 2003; Uno et al. 2001). Indeed, very severe dust storms were observed in Korea on 21-23 March and 7-9 April 2002 (Chun et al. 2004). During these periods the observed PMio concentrations were over 1,000 μg m~(-3) at most monitoring sites in South Korea (In and Park 2003; Park and In 2003). This was 10 times higher than that of the non-dust storm period, thereby causing natural disasters, including temporary closing of most airports and elementary schools in Korea. Particularly, weak dust storms were observed in Korea on 11-12 November 2002 in autumn season.