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Transport trajectories of dust originating from the Tarim Basin, China
Author(s) -
Gao Hang,
Washington Richard
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.1880
Subject(s) - trajectory , tarim basin , centroid , structural basin , environmental science , climatology , meteorology , physical geography , atmospheric sciences , geology , geography , computer science , geomorphology , physics , paleontology , astronomy , artificial intelligence
Although Asian dust's significant environmental and social impacts during its transport process has stimulated a concerted research effort to better understand its transportation characteristics, progress in understanding dust transport from individual key dust source areas has remained limited. For example, there has been no research focussing on the transport trajectory of dust released from the Tarim Basin. In this study, 13 years of transport trajectories in the Tarim Basin in April are simulated. The simulation results reveal important information about transport pathways, transport distance and direction and transport altitudes. A novel centroid method was applied in trajectory analysis. The use of the centroid method enables a quantitative description of trajectories. High dust active (H) years and low dust active (L) years are identified. The composites of transport trajectory for the two kinds of extreme years are compared. The composites of zonal wind average for extreme years are also compared. Our study suggests that Tarim dust transport can be generally divided into two stages. The first stage is when the trajectory centroid is in the Tarim Basin and the second stage is when the trajectory centroid is out of the Tarim Basin. We found that the circulation variation in extreme years exerts a major control over transport. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society