Mapping the Global Dust Storm Records: Review of Dust Data Sources in Supporting Modeling/Climate Study
2015
Wang, Julian X. L.
Dust storms, as extreme environmental events, are one of the Earth’s major natural hazards. Their impact on socio-economics can range from local urban to (trans-) continental and from minutes to decades, such as the dust bowl of the 1930s in the United States. Research on dust storms can be traced back for several decades as a meteorological extension. Latest technology developments have enabled comprehensive studies on dust storms, including sampling improvement, analytic studies, and numerical modeling. However, inhomogeneity of the data has hampered and sometimes even misguided research on comprehensive understanding of dust storms and exploring their feedbacks with climate. This review will focus on currently available observations of dust activities, which include routine meteorological records, in situ air chemistry observations, and satellite remote sensing. The aim is to show data sources and the status of their usage in a common framework for global dust regions. Emphasis is placed on data continuity and the spatial and temporal coverage of dust storms, since it is anticipated that this brief summary of dust data will benefit modeling and climate studies. Therefore, it must be noted that field campaign data are outside of the scope of the current review, although they play an important role in research and understanding.
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