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Unseen Dust Emission and Global Dust Abundance: Documenting Dust Emission from the Mojave Desert (USA) by Daily Remote Camera Imagery and Wind‐Erosion Measurements
Author(s) -
Urban Frank E.,
Goldstein Harland L.,
Fulton Robert,
Reynolds Richard L.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2018jd028466
Subject(s) - mineral dust , dust storm , environmental science , aeolian processes , geostationary operational environmental satellite , flux (metallurgy) , atmospheric sciences , moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer , satellite , storm , aerosol , geology , geography , meteorology , oceanography , physics , geomorphology , materials science , astronomy , metallurgy
A large gap in understanding the effects of atmospheric dust at all spatial scales is uncertainty about how much and whence dust is emitted annually. Direct digital recording of dust emission at high spatial and temporal resolution would together with periodic flux measurements support improved estimates of local‐scale dust flux. Remote camera recording of dust‐emitting settings on and around Soda Lake (Mojave Desert) was conducted every 15 min during daylight between 10 November 2010 and 31 December 2016. Examination of 135,000 images revealed frequent dust events characterized as dust days , 68 per year on average, when dust plumes obscured mountains beyond areas of dust generation. Dust was not observed from examination of satellite retrievals (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite System) during six cloudless days of extreme emission. Estimated masses of emitted dust fractions were made from measured horizontal mass flux, sediment particle sizes, and areas of dust generation. Between April 2000 and June 2013, nearly 4 Tg/year of dust (particles < 63 μm) were emitted across the study area. Higher rates (about 7 Tg/year) were estimated following the December 2010 Mojave River flood that deposited sediment across the lake basin. Within the Mojave and Great Basin deserts of western North America, many settings akin to those at Soda Lake similarly emit dust that is rarely detected in satellite retrievals, implying that local and regional dust emissions from western North America are far underestimated and that, by extension to relatively small dust‐source areas across all drylands, global dust emissions may also be greatly underestimated.