ARL News

Mongolian Dust Cloud Model Simulation

 

April 19, 2001

The Asian Dust Storm (NOAA Press Release, April 18, 2001) has been modeled using the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model at NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory (ARL). The dust storm was simulated by releasing 5000 particles in HYSPLIT over a 24-hour period on April 5th from the Gobi Desert. The particles were assumed to be evenly distributed from the ground to 3000 m. The following animated image shows the HYSPLIT simulated particle positions (in black) superimposed on the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aerosol index measurements (colored boxes) at 24 h intervals from April 7-14, 2001. The dust moved rapidly across the North Pacific Ocean reaching the U.S. West Coast around April 13.