Two different periods of high dust weather frequency in northern China

AbstractThis study reveals that, during the period 1966–2014, dust weather frequency (DWF) in northern China (north of 30°N) features two high-DWF periods, in 1966–1979 (P1) and 2000–2014 (P2), when the linear trend of DWF is removed during the study period. Here, DWF denotes the number of days of dust weather events in the spring season (March–April–May), including dust haze, blowing dust, and dust storms, which occurred in northern China. The results show that the DWF is much higher in P1 than in P2, with increased DWF distributed over southern Xinjiang, the central part of northern China. The main cause is the SST difference in the Atlantic and Pacific between the two periods. It is also found that a meridional teleconnection over East Asia in P1 and a zonal wave-like pattern over Eurasia in P2 at 200 hPa play a significant role in the interannual variability in the two periods, respectively. SST over the subtropical North Atlantic (extratropical SST between the Norwegian and Barents seas) may partly c...