28 JAN 2026 (WED) 15:05 - 15:35

Dust Activities in East Asia in the 21st Century: Trends, Dynamics and Relative Roles of China and Mongolia 

Miss PAN Qidi  

( Supervisor: Prof Jimmy Li )

Abstract:

Mineral dust, predominantly emitted through wind erosion in arid and semiarid regions, plays important roles in the Earth system by modulating numerous physical, chemical, and biogeographical processes. Dust also exerts significant climate forcing by altering solar and thermal radiation budgets. With extensive arid and semiarid areas in China and Mongolia, East Asia is an important source area for the global dust cycle, responsible for approximately 10–15% of total global emissions. Within this region, the Taklamakan and Gobi Desert, located in western China and southern Mongolia, respectively, are the dominant dust sources. 

Despite the decreasing trend of dust activity in East Asia, variability persists, with occasional high-emission periods underscoring the need for long-term assessments. Recent years have highlighted this through notable instances of elevated dust activities, including events in March 2021, April 2022, and March 2023 that caused widespread topsoil loss and human casualties across source regions. These patterns have brought critical questions to the forefront regarding dust source identification, transboundary responsibility, and the development of science-based mitigation approaches. 

This study addresses three key questions concerning East Asian dust emissions: the relative contributions of China and Mongolia in the 21st century, the impact of model uncertainty on severe dust event attribution and transboundary transport, and the projected evolution of national roles under future climate and land-use scenarios. To achieve these objectives, we first use a widely validated dust emission model (Shao04), integrating high-resolution spatial and temporal data to evaluate the relative contributions of Chinese and Mongolian dust sources between 2001 and 2023. Second, we implement five distinct dust emission schemes within the GEOS-Chem transport model to assess the uncertainty range in source attribution during extreme dust events and quantify transboundary influence of Mongolian dust on surface concentrations in northern China. Finally, we project future dust emissions under multiple CMIP6 scenarios to examine evolving national contributions. Our preliminary results show that China dominated the decline in East Asian dust emissions, accounting for approximately 70% of the regional downward trend (−13 Tg yr-1) over the 2001–2023 period. Although Mongolia exhibited substantially lower total emission levels and a smaller magnitude of reduction compared to China, its mean dust emission density (209.21 ± 1.61 g m-2) was approximately 40% higher than that of China.