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A new online coupled regional climate-chemistry-aerosol model (RIEMS-Chemaero) has been developed and applied to investigate direct radiative effects of dust aerosol and mixed aerosols over East Asia in March 2010, when an extremely intense dust storm on 19-22 March swept across almost the entire east China including the Pearl River Delta of south China, where little dust storm was observed before. The model results are evaluated against ground observation of PM10 concentration, aerosol optical depth (ADD) from both AERONET measurement and satellite retrieval (MODIS). The comparison demonstrates a good ability of RIEMS-Chemaero in reproducing major features of aerosol spatial distribution and temporal variation, as well as dust evolution during the dust storm period. However, the model tends to generally underpredict AOD at AERONET sites, with larger biases at urban sites than that at rural sites. Dust aerosols exerted a significant impact on radiation energy budget during the dust storm period, with the 4-day mean values of shortwave and longwave radiative forcings at the surface up to -90 W m(-2) and +40 W m(-2), respectively, over the Gobi desert. The monthly mean net dust radiative forcings at the surface ranged from -9 to -24 W m(-2) over the dust source regions, and from -6 to -21 W m(-2) over wide downwind areas including the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River and the Yellow Sea. The net dust radiative forcing at TOA varied from near zero to +6.0 W m(-2) in large areas of the continent. The monthly mean values of the net direct radiative forcings due to dust, non-dust aerosols and all aerosols (dust + sea salt + anthropogenic aerosols) averaged over the whole domain are estimated to be -3.9 W m(-2), -5.6 W m(-2) and -9.3 W m(-2), respectively, at the surface, and to be +0.9 W m(-2), -3.0W m(-2) and -2.0W m(-2), respectively, at TOA, indicating a light dust warming effect and an overall aerosol cooling effect in the springtime over East Asia. In east China, the net radiative forcings due to dust, non-dust aerosols and all aerosols at the surface are enhanced to -8.4 W m(-2) -10.2 W m(-2) and -18.0W m(-2), respectively, due to both the frequent dust influence and the intensive anthropogenic emissions in this region. The dust forcing accounts for about 42% of the total aerosol forcing at the surface in the domain, implying a potentially important role of mineral dust in radiation budget and regional climate. The semi-direct effect of dust aerosol tends to reduce cloud cover throughout the domain and it is partly responsible for the direct radiative forcings because of the feedbacks among aerosol, radiation, cloud and dynamics. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.