Numerical simulation of two East Asian dust storms in spring 2006

In this study we focus the investigation on two dust-storm events that occurred in spring 2006 over northern China. The first event occurred on 9-11 April and was the most severe in spring 2006 (Case I), whereas the second event occurred on 16-17 April (Case II) and caused widespread dust deposition in northern China, especially in the vicinity of Beijing. The weather systems that generated these dust storms m,ere cold fronts associated with Mongolia cyclones. These events are simulated using a dust-storm model developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Beijing. The simulated dust concentrations are found to agree well with the synoptic records and satellite images. The simulated results are also compared with PM10 measurements at the several stations. The comparisons show that the model can predict the rate of dust emission and airborne dust concentration reasonably well. The numerical results are used to analyse the dust emission, transport and deposition associated with the dust storms. The different characteristics of the weather systems that generated the two dust storms are examined in detail. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.