On The Asian Dust Event of April 1998

On The Asian Dust Event of April 1998

Comments by Dr. Weinan Chen

May 12, 1998

The images the Asian Dust Event website provides are fantastic!

It is pity to hear 12 people were missing during that event. However, it is not surprising for this kind of dust storm occurring in the dryland regions, not just of the Taklamakan Desert, but also everywhere in the world's drylands. The dust front in the Taklamakan Desert was not as high as one that I photographed at Big Spring, Texas (see the image ). In fact, that kind of dust storm occurs every spring. For instance, a huge dust storm broke out on 5 May 1993 in the northwestern desert area of China. More than 40 people died, many were missing. Property damage was severe. Huge dust storms can be read everywhere in the Chinese historic record. It is cited as "yellow rain", " dust fall", or "dust rain". People attributed this to the formation of so called "aeolian loess deposits". From my knowledge, the 16 April dust storm that happened in Xinjiang, China is only one of the common "high magnitude and low frequency" aeolian events.

The Taklamakan Desert is probably the largest desert in its large area Of mobile sand dune coverage. The area of the Tarim basin is about 500,000 square kilometers where 80% of its surface are covered by shifting sand dunes. I traveled through (across) the desert from south to north at the central area in 1990 with an exploration team to search for a route for building a roadway for oil exploration. Some of the US experts were working there for the oil company when I was there. Now they are building oil fields in the Taklamakan Desert. But I do not think anthropogenic activities can add any significant influence on the regional processes of aeolian transport (there). It is Aeolus itself that does all these things!

Comments on the CNN story transcript.

With regards to the CNN story transcript, a resident might say anything what he/she wants to say when he/she faces a journalist. It is not surprising that aeolian dust can be transported to Shandong Province, China. During the later Quaternary, probably also in the Holocene period, loess deposits developed in the lower reaches of the Yangzi River. There developed well-known loess deposits (Q3) around Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province, China. The Chinese historical records also showed periodic dust fall in the East China Plains area. When a cold wave is pushed by the Mongolia-Siberia High Pressure and moves southeastward, it is enhanced by the narrow path between mountains like the Gansu Corridor. It picks up dust from the dryland area and transports them southeasterly and re-deposits them to the Loess Plateau, or farther to the East China Plain. This kind of aeolian process is common in drylands all over the world.