干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The report focuses on the analysis of the detail structure of ocean currents in areas of dust storms distribution or intensive phytoplankton's development. Dust storms represent the global phenomenon occurring regularly and, thus, atmospheric streams transfer a significant amount of the sand and dust (more than 2000 million tons) from deserts of Gobi, Sahara, Namibia, and Arabian Peninsula etc. The dust from Sahara achieves Caribbean Sea and southeast areas of USA for 5-7 days, and traces of the Asian dust storm, which have crossed Pacific Ocean, were found out in Great Lakes. For the purposes of our research the influence of sand and a dust dropping out from atmosphere on optical properties of the top layer of the ocean is represented especially significant. We shall note, that this question is poorly covered in the scientific literature. On our data, there are only separate certificates that return dispersion in green area of a spectrum for the top layer of the ocean is considerably increased after passage of a dust storm. It occurs due to saturation of the ocean top layer sand particles were sunlight diffusion is good. On the other hand, these particles, being a passive tracer, are easily involved by separate jets of currents in local circulation. These factors create a real basis for space observations on details mesoscale ocean circulation.

As a trial experiment, author of the report have leaded the multispectral. analysis data from MODIS (satellite AQUA), received on a northwest part Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. Results of the analysis confirm the made hypothesis.