干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The first documented case of long-range transport of Saharan dust over a pathway spanning Asia and the Pacific to western North America is described. Crustal material generated by North African dust storms during the period 28 February to 3 March 2005 reached western Canada on 13-14 March 2005 and was observed by lidar and sunphotometer in the Vancouver region and by high-altitude aerosol instrumentation at Whistler Peak. Global chemical models (GEOS-Chem and NRL NAAPS) confirm the transport pathway and suggest source attribution was simplified in this case by the distinct, and somewhat unusual, lack of dust activity over Eurasia (Gobi and Takla Makan deserts) at this time. Over western North America the dust layer, although subsiding close to the boundary layer, did not appear to contribute to boundary layer particulate matter concentrations. Furthermore, sunphotometer observations (and associated inversion products) suggest that the dust layer had only subtle optical impact (aerosol optical thickness (tau(a500)) and Angstrom exponent (alpha(440-870)) were 0.1 and 1.2, respectively) and was dominated by fine particulate matter (modes in aerodynamic diameter at 0.3 and 2.5 mu m). High-altitude observations at Whistler, British Columbia, confirm the crustal origin of the layer (rich in Ca++ ions) and the bimodal size distribution. Although a weak event compared to the Asian trans-Pacific dust events of 1998 and 2001, this novel case highlights the possibility that Saharan sources may contribute episodically to the aerosol burden in western North America.