>> Do you know what the cause of the dust is? Is it a natural weather
>> phenomenon, or is it from the industrialization and land development....
We've been getting these events pretty regularly for decades,
so the events themselves are nothing new. What's relatively new
is that the Gobi (and other) desert dust plus eastern Siberian
forest fire smoke is coming in with industrial pollutants (sulphur,
benzene, etc) from the burgeoning Chinese economy. The seasonal
wind pattern doesn't always bring it our way, and it is easy to
expect that the desert dust and forest fires don't always happen
when the winds are right for this phenomenon. So expect large
year-to-year variations. This year has been worse than the
last couple, but there were strong events in the late-90s and
early-aughties.
Again, since you're observers, take Yogi Berra's advice and
"notice stuff". Since the environment is being monitored much
better than in the past, it's possible to find out about these
things. See the aerosol map here:
http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov
The maps run two days behind, but by looking at them over several days
you can spot the trends. The current one (for May 9) suggests
there's still more stuff in eastern Siberia and the western Pacific,
so depending on the winds we may get another round in the coming
week or so.
\Brian
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.