Large-scale dust event in East Asia, as revealed by the Himawari-8 DUST RGB, lidar network observations, and field survey

Abstract

A large-scale dust event occurred in East Asia during early May 2017, and transported dust was measured all over Japan. We performed an analysis of the entire dust event using multiple sources: a local ceilometer measurement, measurements from an optical particle counter in the Gobi Desert (Dalanzadgad, Mongolia), a study of Dust RGB imagery obtained from Himawari-8, lidar measurements from Japan, and meteorological data. Our results show that three extratropical low pressure systems occurred consecutively in Mongolia and generated dust storms in the Gobi Desert. Remarkably, the Dust RGB imagery shows both the occurrence and the transportation of the dust, and was able to detect two dust outbreaks in the Horqin Sandy Land of Northern China and their transportation to eastern Japan; this shows that the Horqin Sandy Land was one of the source regions of this dust event.