1. The ‘Perfect Gobi Dust Storm’ – April 2001 An evolving presentation by a virtual community Would you like add to this presentation? 1.Download this PPT presentationDownload 2.Add your content 3.Upload PPT fileUpload

2. The April 6, 2001 Dust Storm over Mongolia Joe Prospero, jprospero@rsmas.miami.edu, April 8, 2001jprospero@rsmas.miami.edu On 6 April, a huge dust storm erupts over much of southern Mongolia and inner Mongolia. An interesting feature of this image is that the dust cloud seams to be derived from a relatively small number of "point" sources. Just to the right of the center of the image you can see many very long "plumes" which appear to trail from specific sources. The source areas seem to be arrayed roughly along the 100E longitude. (Note the dark roundish object in the image in the lower center of the image; this is Qinghai Hu, a salt lake, 4300 km2, located at 37.0N, 100.0E.) The northern extent of the dust activity is at about 45N and dust activity extends south to about 36S (i.e., to the region east of the salt lake). Note that the dust cloud inhuge dust storm erupts over much of southern Mongolia the southern end of the dusty area has a rather uniform appearance compared to the area to the dust area to the north where a lot of character can be seen in the distribution. This suggests that the dust cloud on the north is relatively fresh while that to the south was probably advected from the east and is "old". On 6 April, there continues to be a tremendous amount of dust activity but the dusty area begins further to the east at about 110E. (You can orient yourself with reference to Lake Baikal, the long white area oriented NE-SW in the top of the image.) Once again, the dust appears as a series of closely packed long plumes, each well-defined. Note in the upper right of the image the large cyclonic rotation feature in the clouds.tremendous amount of dust In the following series of images, we look at Seawifs images on the same dates, but here we refer to Doug Westphals "western Pacific" images. On 3 April, we do not see much activity: Some light dust activity can be seen on the extreme left of the image at about the mid point. On 4 April, you can't see much in the image. On 5 April, heavy dust activity can be seen on the extreme left of the image. On 6 April, the dust storm erupts over southern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Note once again the very clear plume-like character to the dust cloud.3 April4 April5 April6 April And then 7 April. This is the most remarkable dust storm image that I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot.7 April The center of the cyclonic circulation is located near Hulun Nur (the white rectangle oriented NE-SW to the west of the center of the circulation center) which is at 49N, 117E. I draw your attention once again to the clearly-defined dust plumes located to the south of the cyclonic circulation. Using the Yellow Sea as a measure of distance, I judge the plumes to be 600-800 km long! Rudy Husar has some labeled images on his web site: April 6, April 7. The TOMS Absorbing Aerosol product has captured this massive dust event very nicely. 3 April, 4 April, 5 April, 6 April, 7 April, 8 April.April 6April 73 April4 April5 April6 April7 April8 April