Potential of Mineral Dust in Changing the Sea Surface Temperature and Precipitation over East Asia

The distributions and radiative effects of mineral dust during winter half year over East Asia have been investigated in this study. The mineral dust is mainly located around 40 degrees N, however, the aerosol optical depth (AOD) of dust can exceed over 0.6 over the Taklimakan desert both in MODIS observations and model simulations. The direct radiative forcings (DRFs) of dust are about -9.23 W m(-2) at the surface and 0.39 W m(-2) at the top of atmosphere (TOA) in winter half year. With the presence of an interactive ocean model, the dust will decrease surface air temperature over East Asia (-0.25 K) except for oceanic regions. The increase in atmospheric temperature (0.015 K) will weaken the total heat flux and affect air specific humidity, which will finally decrease the precipitation over East Asia (-0.06 mm day(-1)). Sea surface temperature (SST) responses are very important when evaluating the climatic effects of dust over East Asia. If we fix the SST in regional model, the weakening trend of precipitation can reach up to -0.08 mm day(-1). (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.