Impact of Sea Surface Temperature Variability at Different Ocean Basins on Dust Activities in the Gobi Desert and North China

Abstract

The frequency and intensity of dust activities are closely related to the meteorological condition. The higher temperature results in more substantial soil water evaporation conducive to the dryer and looser soil, thus favorable for generating floating sands (Zhang and Wang, 2001). On the synoptic scale, frequent cyclones and strong gusts are the main drivers of spring dust activities in North China (Lu et al., 2003;Qiu et al., 2001). These local meteorological conditions are also modulated by the teleconnection effect of large-scale climate variability originated from remote oceans. For example, in late autumn, the warming of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature (SST) were found to be linked to positive geopotential height anomalies over the Urals and weakened winter Asian polar vortex (Z. Han et al., 2011;Peng et al., 1995;Yu & Sun, 2020), thus increasing the dust activity frequency in North China (Zhang and Wang, 2001). La Niña events in the boreal autumn may also significantly enhance the East Asian Winter Monsoon (EAWM), and the water vapor flux diverges with decreasing precipitation

Possible impact of North Atlantic sea surface temperature on decadal variability of dust activity in Gobi Desert

“…(b) inLiu et al (2022) highlighted the presence of multidecadal oscillating variability in dust frequency over Gobi Desert, aligning with the findings of our study. Trends beyond 2015 remain uncertain due to the relatively short duration of available time, both in Liu et al (2022) and our study.…”

“…Nevertheless, our study indicates that NASST exerts the most substantial influence on dust occurrences in Gobi Desert. If we employ the same NAO region as Liu et al (2022), tropical Atlantic SST generally exhibits the most significant impacts, followed by NASST, aligning with the findings of Liu et al (2022). Li et al (2020) and DeAngelis et al (2023) connected NASST and/or tropical SST anomaly to heat and drought events over Northeastern China and Siberia via Rossby wave trains and teleconnections related to anomalous tropical heating.…”

“…As demonstrated by a recent study by Liu et al (2022), dust frequency over Gobi Desert can be influenced by sea surface temperature anomalies across various oceans. Our results similarly reveal the impacts of tropical Atlantic SST, tropical Pacific SST, and NASST (figure S4).…”

Increasing Fire Weather Potential Over Northeast China Linked to Declining Bering Sea Ice

“…Therefore, we construct a statistical model for simulating FWI in these experiments using the random forest regression (RFR) method, similar to Liu et al. (2022, 2023). Finally, the input variables comprise T2M, SLP, TP, and WND10 during the boreal spring, while the output is FWI, representing fire weather potential.…”

Amundsen Sea Ice Loss Contributes to Australian Wildfires

“…The above-mentioned experiments, referred to as OBE, are in line with the methodologies in earlier research. 40,41 The details of the experiment setup and the calculation of the contribution of sea ice to FWI in 2019 are provided in the Supporting Information.…”