A Case Study of a Typical Dust Storm Event over the Loess Plateau of Northwest China

Enhanced observational meteorological elements, energy fluxes, and the concentration of dust aerosols collected from the Semi-Arid Climate Observatory and Laboratory (SACOL) during a typical dust storm period in March 2010 at Lanzhou were used in this paper to investigate the impact of dust aerosols on near surface atmospheric variables and energy budgets. The results show that the entire dust storm event was associated with high wind velocities and decreasing air pressure, and the air changed from cold and wet to warm and dry and then recovered to its initial state. The response of energy fluxes occurred behind meteorological elements. At high dust concentration periods, the net radiation was significantly less in the daytime and higher at night, while the heat fluxes displayed the same trend, indicating the weakening of the land-atmosphere energy exchange. The results can be used to provide verification for numerical model results in semi-arid areas.