Dust Vortex in the Taklimakan Desert by Himawari-8 High Frequency and Resolution Observation.

ABSTRACT: The Taklimakan Desert is known to be one of the world's major sources of aeolian dust particles. Continuous images with 10-min temporal and 2-km spatial resolutions from a new-generation geostationary meteorological satellite captured the lifecycle (generation, evolution and outflow) of a previously unrecognized type of Taklimakan dust storm. The dust storm showed an anti-clockwise spiral structure and a clear core and behaved like a "dust vortex". From image analysis, the horizontal scale and temporal lifetime of the dust vortex were estimated to be 600 km and 36 hours, respectively. We found that a strong pressure trough (cut-off low), along with a cold air mass located on the northwestern side of the Taklimakan Desert and the high mountains surrounding the Taklimakan Desert, played impo

SUBMITTER: Yumimoto K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6362108 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature