Graphical Abstract

• Tweet

Bi, J., J. Shi, Y. Xie, Y. Liu, T. Takamura, and P. Khatri, 2014: Dust aerosol characteristics and shortwave radiative impact at a Gobi Desert of northwest China during the spring of 2012. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 92A, 33-56.
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2014-A03

• Graphical Abstract with highlights
• Original PDF

Highlights:

• High aerosol loading and predominantly coarse particulates were observed in Dunhuang during the spring of 2012 ascribed to the influence of prevalent dust storm (Fig. 1).
• The single scattering albedo at 500 nm (SSA₅₀₀) varied from 0.91 to 0.97 on dusty days and increased with the increase of aerosol optical depth, indicating that the dust aerosols sourced from northwest China were not strongly absorbing.
• The daily mean aerosol shortwave direct radiative forcing (ARF) were largely negative at the surface (-79.4 to -3.2 W m^-2) and moderately positive in the atmosphere (2.2 to 25.1 W m^-2), which represents a strong cooling at the surface and moderate warming in the atmosphere. The ARF at TOA was positive value when SSA₅₀₀ is less than 0.85 or the imaginary part at 500 nm was larger than 0.015 (Fig. 2).