Yellow Dust Linked to Weather Change

From Reuters:

Jeff Stith of the National Center for Atmospheric Research communicated with reporters via Web chat from a research jet flying 40,000 feet above the ocean as part of a mission to track dust and pollution particles blown from Asia to the United States.

“We have found enhancements in pollution levels in some of the upper regions of the storm clouds we studied, just yesterday for example,” Stith wrote.

Stith and his ground-based colleague, V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, aimed to study the interaction between the pollution and dust with high-altitude clouds bearing ice crystals.

Ice crystals are found in extremely cold clouds, and when the crystals are composed entirely of frozen water, they reflect lots of sunlight — that’s why these clouds look so white, Ramanathan said by telephone after the Web chat.

However, if particles of dust and a dark pollutant known as black carbon managed to get inside the crystals, these clouds might absorb more solar energy rather than reflecting it all, Ramanathan said.

You can see interviews with the two scientists here and here, but they say the significance of this dust mixed with Asian pollution blowing across the Pacific, is that they believe it effects weather patterns by influencing precipitation levels once the clouds reach the US. They also believe the dust and pollution is possible for anywhere from 20%-80% of global warming.

Here is computer enhanced image of the dust and pollution crossing the ocean from the PACDEX website:

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It seems like the dust has been getting worse nearly every year, maybe some of you Korea old-timers can verify if the dust was as bad 20-30 years ago as it is now. It will be interesting to see what the scientists findings are once they complete their research.

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Marco
Marco
17 years ago

I've been here most of the time since 1983 and the dust has gotten much worse. Until about 5 years ago Spring only met nice weather. Now it means more dust and for a longer period of time each year. I never had alergys until about 3-4 years ago and they only come with the dust not the pollen.

fencerider
17 years ago

I have been here 11 years in pusan and daegu…the frequency is irratic but the severity is definately increasing as witnessed by the April Fool's day storm this year that reached above 2000 in Daegu…

Check these pics out

trackback
17 years ago

[…] [GI Korea] Yellow Dust Linked Published: Wed, 16 May 2007 20:20:04 +0000 From Reuters: Jeff Stith of the National Center for Atmospheric Research communicated with reporters via Web chat from a research jet flying 40,000 feet above the ocean as part of a mission to track dust and pollution particles blown from Asia to the United States. "We have found enhancements in pollution levels in some of the upper […] Read More… […]

Mr. Joe
Mr. Joe
17 years ago

Good articles. I had no knowledge of the problem here 30 years ago. I doubt if anyone noticed, if indeed it existed.

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