The transport animation of Asian dust clouds in the Google Earth

The Asian dust often covers over East Asia in the late winter and spring seasons. Fine dust particles in the air have harmful influence on our health. It is, therefore, important to see the extent and movement of Asian dust clouds over East Asia. In this study, the animation of Asian dust clouds generated by the long-range transport simulation is made from 22:00 on March 30 to 15:00 on April 1, 2007 in the Google Earth. First, the released region and mass flux of sand dust necessary for computing the concentration distribution of Asian dust clouds were estimated. Next, the long-range transport simulation of Asian dust clouds was carried out under the estimated initial conditions. Output files of the concentration distribution of Asian dust clouds generated every an hour in this transport simulation were converted to images with the png format. After editing the KML script, a sequence of images of Asian dust clouds was displayed in the Google Earth. At the same time, the colored map of the concentration distribution of SPM made by SPM data at measurement places in 11 Prefectures at the side of the Sea of Japan was displayed every an hour in the Google Earth. Finally, it is shown that the concentration of the simulated Asian dust cloud (~0.1mg/m³) is almost the same as that of SPM (0.08~0.09mg/m³) measured at several places in Japan.