Dust emission and environmental changes in the dried bottom of the Aral Sea

Indoitu, R.; Kozhoridze, Giorgi; Batyrbaeva, M.; Vitkovskaya, Irina; Orlovsky, N.; Blumberg, Dan G.; Orlovsky, L.

doi:10.1016/j.aeolia.2015.02.004

Cited by 129 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…The desiccation of the Aral Sea over recent decades has resulted in a steady decline in water coverage over the area (Shi et al, 2014;Shi and Wang, 2015) and has led to the dried up sea bed becoming an increasing source of dust activity in the region (Spivak et al, 2012). Indoitu et al (2015) found that most dust events are directed towards the west, consistent with the OMI observations. An increase in surface reflectance due to the drying up of the sea bed could also positively influence trends in UVAI.…”

Section: Mean Uvai Values For 2005-2015supporting

confidence: 80%

“…Because the UVAI is calculated from measured radiances, a priori assumptions about aerosol composition are not required for its calculation, thus yielding independent information on aerosol scattering (Herman et al, 1997;Torres et al, 1998Torres et al, , 2007de Graaf et al, 2005;Penning de Vries et al, 2009) and absorption. The UVAI has been widely applied to examine mineral dust (Israelevich et al, 2002;Schepanski et al, 2007;Badarinath et al, 2010;Huang et al, 2010) and biomass burning aerosols (Duncan et al, 2003;Guan et al, 2010;Torres et al, 2010;Kaskaoutis et al, 2011;Mielonen et al, 2012), including brown carbon (BrC) (Jethva and Torres, 2011;Hammer et al, 2016). The UVAI is not typically used to examine scattering aerosol, but aerosol scattering causes a net decrease in the overall value of the UVAI, meaning that the UVAI could be used to detect changes due to both aerosol absorption and scattering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Insight into global trends in aerosol composition from 2005 to 2015 inferred from the OMI Ultraviolet Aerosol Index

Hammer

Martin

et al. 2018

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Observations of aerosol scattering and absorption offer valuable information about aerosol composition. We apply a simulation of the Ultraviolet Aerosol Index (UVAI), a method of detecting aerosol absorption from satellite observations, to interpret UVAI values observed by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) from 2005 to 2015 to understand global trends in aerosol composition. We conduct our simulation using the vector radiative transfer model VLI-DORT with aerosol fields from the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem. We examine the 2005-2015 trends in individual aerosol species from GEOS-Chem and apply these trends to the UVAI simulation to calculate the change in simulated UVAI due to the trends in individual aerosol species. We find that global trends in the UVAI are largely explained by trends in absorption by mineral dust, absorption by brown carbon, and scattering by secondary inorganic aerosol. Trends in absorption by mineral dust dominate the simulated UVAI trends over North Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and Australia. The UVAI simulation resolves observed negative UVAI trends well over Australia, but underestimates positive UVAI trends over North Africa and Central Asia near the Aral Sea and underestimates negative UVAI trends over East Asia. We find evidence of an increasing dust source from the desiccating Aral Sea that may not be well represented by the current generation of models. Trends in absorption by brown carbon dominate the simulated UVAI trends over biomass burning regions. The UVAI simulation reproduces observed negative trends over central South America and West Africa, but underestimates observed UVAI trends over boreal forests. Trends in scattering by secondary inorganic aerosol dominate the simulated UVAI trends over the eastern United States and eastern India. The UVAI simulation slightly overestimates the observed positive UVAI trends over the eastern United States and underestimates the observed negative UVAI trends over India. Quantitative simulation of the OMI UVAI offers new insight into global trends in aerosol composition.

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Section: Mean Uvai Values For 2005-2015supporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight into global trends in aerosol composition from 2005 to 2015 inferred from the OMI Ultraviolet Aerosol Index

Hammer

Martin

et al. 2018

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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“…AI is positive for absorbing aerosols (dust and smoke particles) and negative for non-absorbing aerosols (Sreekanth 2014a, b). The aerosols from the Aral Sea basin consist mainly of dust, since vegetation on the dry sea floor is very sparse and the absence of major industries and urban centers (Breckle et al 2011;Putman 2012) prevents such large smoke plumes from being produced (Indoitu et al 2015). Accordingly, in the current study, only positive AI values were considered to reveal the interannual and intraannual variation of in dust aerosol.…”

Section: Datasets and Analysesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Long-distance transport of such dust harms animals and plants and also poses a serious threat to the environment in downstream areas (Abuduwaili et al 2010). Currently, many shrinking lakes, such as Ebinur Lake in northwest China (Abuduwaili and Mu 2006), Aiding Lake within the Turpan basin in China (Wang and Wu 2003), the Aral Sea in central Asia (Bai et al 2011;O'Hara et al 2000;Baidya Roy et al 2013), Hamoun lakes in Sistan basin of Iran (Rashki et al 2013), and Lake Balkhash in western Kazakhstan (Bond et al 1992), are facing severe desertification processes and dust storm hazards (Issanova et al 2014(Issanova et al , 2015Indoitu et al 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal Variability and Potential Diffusion Characteristics of Dust Aerosol Originating from the Aral Sea Basin, Central Asia

Abuduwaili

et al. 2016

Water Air Soil Pollut

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The drastic desiccation of the Aral Sea has led to severe desertification of the former lake areas. Dust storms occur frequently, causing regional environmental degradation of the Aral basin and a serious ecological disaster. Knowledge of the temporal variability in dust emissions and the potential diffusion characteristics of dust aerosol originating from the Aral Sea basin in recent years are, however, lacking. To address this knowledge gap, we studied the interannual and intraannual changes in dust aerosol from the Aral Sea basin and its potentially seasonal diffusion characteristics from 2005 to 2013 using Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aerosol data (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) and the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model. Results show that the OMI aerosol index (AI) annual mean, standard deviation, median, and maximum values exhibit a strong increasing trend because of the continuous decrease in the water level since 2005. The annually mean OMI AI increases to 1.47 by 2013. Peak AI values are recorded in spring (March-May) and early winter (November-January of the following year), indicating notifying seasonal differences. The potential distance and height of air parcel trajectories to the northeast are greater than those to the west and south, whereas the air parcel trajectory proportion of the former is lower than that of the latter. The potential transport distance of dust aerosol to the northeast is greatest in spring and winter. This transport distance is less in autumn, with the minimum observed in summer. Dust transport distance to the west and south in different seasons is not significantly different. The present results may help in further understanding the emission, long-range transport, and deposition of dust from the dry lake bed of the Aral Sea as well as providing a motivation for the sensible use and protection of these tail-end lakes.

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“…Dust storms and their source areas have been determined and analyzed by satellite data. An analysis of the land-cover changes in the dried bottom of the Aral Sea revealed that the northeastern part of the Aralkum Desert is one of the most active dust sources in the region, responsible for high aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere particularly in spring [123,124]. The dust source areas are identified as the Iraq-Saudi Arabia boundary region and (recently) the northwest of Iraq, using MODIS deep blue aerosol optical depth data.…”

Section: Dust Outbreaks In Central Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of the CHIMERE Chemistry Transport Model to Simulate Dust Outbreaks across the Northern Hemisphere in March 2014

et al. 2017

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Abstract:Mineral dust is one of the most important aerosols over the world, affecting health and climate. These mineral particles are mainly emitted over arid areas but may be long-range transported, impacting the local budget of air quality in urban areas. While models were extensively used to study a single specific event, or make a global analysis at coarse resolution, the goal of our study is to simultaneously focus on several affected areas-Europe, North America, Central Asia, east China and the Caribbean area-for a one-month period, March 2014, avoiding any parameter fitting to better simulate a single dust outbreak. The simulation is performed for the first time with the hemispheric version of the CHIMERE model, with a high horizontal resolution (about 10 km). In this study, an overview of several simultaneous dust outbreaks over the Northern Hemisphere is proposed to assess the capability of such modeling tools to predict dust pollution events. A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the most striking episodes is presented with comparisons to satellite data, ground based particulate matter and calcium measurements. Despite some overestimation of dust concentrations far from emission source areas, the model can simulate the timing of the arrival of dust outbreaks on observational sites. For instance, several spectacular dust storms in the US and China are rather well captured by the models. The high resolution provides a better description and understanding of the orographic effects and the long-range transport of dust plumes.

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Dust emission and environmental changes in the dried bottom of the Aral Sea

Cited by 129 publications

References 41 publications

Insight into global trends in aerosol composition from 2005 to 2015 inferred from the OMI Ultraviolet Aerosol Index

Insight into global trends in aerosol composition from 2005 to 2015 inferred from the OMI Ultraviolet Aerosol Index

Temporal Variability and Potential Diffusion Characteristics of Dust Aerosol Originating from the Aral Sea Basin, Central Asia

An Evaluation of the CHIMERE Chemistry Transport Model to Simulate Dust Outbreaks across the Northern Hemisphere in March 2014

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