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Increased dust aerosols in the high troposphere over the Tibetan Plateau from 1990s to 2000s
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  • Xingya Feng,
  • Rui Mao,
  • Dao-Yi Gong,
  • Chun Zhao,
  • Chenglai Wu,
  • Chuanfeng Zhao,
  • Guangjian Wu,
  • Zhaohui Lin,
  • Xiaohong Liu,
  • Kaicun Wang,
  • Yijie Sun
Xingya Feng
Beijing Normal University
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Rui Mao
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Dao-Yi Gong
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology
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Chun Zhao
University of Science and Technology of China
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Chenglai Wu
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Chuanfeng Zhao
Beijing Normal University
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Guangjian Wu
Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Zhaohui Lin
Institute of Atmospheric Physics(IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Xiaohong Liu
Texas A&M University
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Kaicun Wang
Beijing Normal University
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Yijie Sun
Beijing Normal University
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Abstract

The dust aerosols are a major type of aerosol over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and influence climate at local to regional scales through their effects on thermal radiation and snow-albedo feedback. Based on the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) aerosol dataset, we report an increase of 34% in the atmospheric dust in the high troposphere over the TP during the spring season in the 2000s in comparison to the 1990s. This result is supported by an increase of 157% (46%) in the dust deposition flux in the Mugagangqiong (Tanggula) ice cores and an increase of 69% in the Aerosol Index (AI) from Earth Probe (EP) Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), as well as by increases of simulated dust aerosols over the TP derived from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The increased atmospheric dust over the TP is caused in two aspects: (1) there was a higher dust emission over the Middle East during the 2000s than during the 1990s, which is explained by less precipitation and 25.8% higher in cyclone frequency over the Middle East. The increased cyclones uplift more dust from the surface over the Middle East to the central Asia in the middle troposphere. (2) Enhanced mid-latitude zonal winds help transport more dust in the middle troposphere from the central Asia to the Northwest China and thereafter an increase in northerly winds over Northwest China propels dust southward to the TP.
16 Jul 2020Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres volume 125 issue 13. 10.1029/2020JD032807