Estimates of Asian dust deposition over the Asian region by using ADAM2 in 2007 Original Research Article

The Asian Dust Aerosol Model 2 (ADAM2) with the MM5 meteorological model has been employed to estimate the dust concentration, and wet and dry depositions of dust in the Asian region for the year of 2007. It is found that the model simulates quite reasonably the dust (PM10) concentrations both in the dust source region (100–110°E and 37–43°N) and the downstream region of Korea. The starting and ending times of most of dust events and their peak concentration occurring times are well simulated. The annual average dust (PM10) concentration near the surface is found to be 171 μg m− 3 over the dust source area, 39 μg m− 3 over the Yellow Sea, 25 μg m− 3 over the Korean peninsula and 17 μg m− 3 over the East Sea. It is also found that the annual total deposition of dust is about 118.1 t km− 2 (dry deposition, 101.4 t km− 2; wet deposition, 16.7 t km− 2) in the dust source region, 19.0 t km− 2 (dry deposition, 7.8 t km− 2; wet deposition, 11.2 t km− 2) in the Yellow Sea, 12.6 t km− 2 (dry deposition, 6.5 t km− 2; wet deposition, 6.1 t km− 2) in the Korean peninsula and 10.7 t km− 2 (dry deposition, 2.1 t km− 2; wet deposition, 8.6 t km− 2) in the East Sea. Their ratios of wet deposition to total deposition of dust in the respective regions are 14%, 59%, 48% and 80%. This clearly indicates that the main dust removal mechanism from the atmosphere is dry deposition over the source region whereas wet deposition predominates in the downstream region of the sea. The estimated dust deposition could adversely impact the eco-environmental system in the downstream regions of the dust source region significantly.