Monitoring the source of trans-national dust storms in north east Asia

The vast expanse of the Gobi desert across the Mongolian plateau features frequent dust storms. In this isolated region remote sensing techniques can provide an effective measurement of dust storms. Brightness temperature channels 4, 5 of AVHRR/NOAA satellite data, emissive bands of MODIS/TERRA satellite data, and meteorological station measurement data were used and tested for dust and sandstorm mapping in the desert area of Mongolia and northern China. The differences between thermal bands in combination with GIS layers were used for mapping in this study. The results show that dust and sand storm maps can be achieved from emissive bands for monitoring of dust and sandstorms. Most active dust storm sources can occur in truly remote areas where there is little or no human activity though many sources are associated with areas where human impacts are well documented. Thus on a regional scale dust mobilization appears to be dominated by natural sources.