Sub-basin scale dust source geomorphology detected using MODIS

The spatial and temporal variability of dust emissions from different surfaces in the Lake Eyre Basin, Australia is determined using MODIS data. For 2003–6 the sources of 529 dust plumes were classified: overall 37% of plumes originated in areas of aeolian deposits, 30% from alluvial deposits and floodplains and 29% from ephemeral lakes or playas. At this sub-basin scale, the relative importance of different dust source geomorphologies varied primarily in response to sediment supply and availability and was not related to aeolian transport capacity, suggesting the Lake Eyre Basin is a supply-limited system

Aeolian dust as a transport hazard

The effects of blowing dust on transport operations are often mentioned as one of the significant impacts of aeolian processes on human welfare. However, few studies have been presented to demonstrate this impact. This research examined official air traffic incident reports in Australia for inclusively 1969-2010 to characterise the hazard of blowing dust to aviation in the country, the first such study of its kind. For the 42 year record, 61 incidents were identified (mean 1.4 per annum), with the large majority occurring in the first half of the 1970s. Only 20% of incidents occurred from 1984 onwards. Australian dust activity has not decreased over time, and the reduction in incidents is partly explained by improvements in aviation technology. The centralisation of Air Traffic Control operations to major coastal cities may however have reduced pilot reporting of dust-induced aviation incidents. By type of dust activity, dust storms were associated with nearly half of the reported incidents and dust hazes produced around a quarter. Only 5% of incidents resulted in any physical damage to aircraft and only one case involving personal injury was reported. The majority of the adverse effects on aviation due to dust (nearly 60% of reported incidents) were related to difficulties for navigation and completion of scheduled journey. Since aircraft damage and bodily harm were rare, the impact of dust in Australia is mostly that of inconvenience and associated raised economic costs. From 1990, the temporal pattern of incidents does not show any significant increase despite several intensely dusty years associated with recent droughts. This suggests that Australian aviation safety may be relatively resistant to the adverse effects of atmospheric dust as a hazard

Impact of wildfire on interdune ecology and sediments: an example from the Simpson Desert, Australia

The stability of many sand dunes and their interdunes is dependent on vegetation and surface crust cover. When this cover is removed, the sand can be activated and fine sediments deflated making the dunefields into sources of dust. This paper reports the impact of devegetation by wildfire on an interdune in the Simpson Desert, Australia. The fire occurred in 2001 and six years after the event pronounced differences between a pair of burnt and unburnt sites was clearly discernible. The variables examined included vegetation assemblage, cyanobacteria abundance and sediment aggregation, particle-size distribution and colour; but whether they apply to all such situations is uncertain. Rate of recovery has been slow and the differences are likely to have been sustained by a combination of negative feedback processes and climate

Drivers of Australian dust: a case study of frontal winds and dust dynamics in the lower Lake Eyre Basin

The roles of pre-frontal, frontal and post-frontal winds as the primary wind systems for dust entrainment and transport in Australia are well established. While the relevance of each system has been observed across different wind erosion events in central Australia, the entrainment of dust by all three winds during the passage of an individual front has not been demonstrated until now. Synoptic information, satellite aerosol and imagery, meteorological and dust concentration data are presented for a single case study erosion event in the lower Lake Eyre Basin. This event demonstrates variable dust transport in three different directions from one of the southern Hemisphere's most significant source regions, and the changing nature of the active dust pathways during the passage of a frontal system. While only a single dust event is considered, the findings show the complexity of mineral aerosol emission and transport patterns even within an individual dust outbreak. For the lower Lake Eyre Basin, this appreciation of pathway behaviour is significant for better understanding the role of aeolian inputs from the dominant Australian source to surrounding marine systems. In a wider context, the findings exhibit the detailed insights into major dust source dynamics that can be obtained from high resolution spatial and particularly temporal data, as used in combination. This work highlights the importance of adequately resolved data for the accurate determination of dust entrainment and transport patterns of major dust sources

A visibility and total suspended dust relationship

This study reports findings on observed visibility reductions and associated concentrations of mineral dust from a detailed Australian case study. An understanding of the relationship between visibility and dust concentration is of considerable utility for wind erosion and aeolian dust research because it allows visibility data, which are available from thousands of weather observation stations worldwide, to be converted into dust concentrations. Until now, this application of visibility data for wind erosion/dust studies has been constrained by the scarcity of direct measurements of co-incident dust concentration and visibility measurements. While dust concentrations are available from high volume air samplers, these time-averaged data cannot be directly correlated with instantaneous visibility records from meteorological observations. This study presents a new method for deriving instantaneous values of total suspended dust from time averaged (filter-based) samples, through reference to high resolution PM10 data. The development and testing of the model is presented here as well as a discussion of the derived expression in relation to other visibility-dust concentration predictive curves. The current study is significant because the visibility-dust concentration relationship produced is based on visibility observations made 10-100km from the dust sources. This distance from source makes the derived relationship appropriate for a greater number of visibility recording stations than widely-used previous relationships based on observations made directly at eroding sources. Testing of the new formula performance against observed total suspended dust concentrations demonstrates that the model predicts dust concentration relatively well (r2=0.6) from visibility. When considered alongside previous studies, the new relationship fits into the continuum of visibility-dust concentration outcomes existing for increasing distance-from-source. This highlights the important influence that distance to source has on the visibility-dust concentration relationship

Preferential dust sources: a geomorphological classification designed for use in global dust-cycle models

We present a simple theoretical land-surface classification that can be used to determine the location and temporal behaviour of preferential sources of terrestrial dust emissions. The classification also provides information about the likely nature of the sediments, their erodibility and the likelihood that they will generate emissions under given conditions. The scheme is based on the dual notions of geomorphic type and connectivity between geomorphic units. We demonstrate that the scheme can be used to map potential modern-day dust sources in the Chihuahuan Desert, the Lake Eyre Basin and the Taklamakan. Through comparison with observed dust emissions, we show that the scheme provides a reasonable prediction of areas of emission in the Chihuahuan Desert and in the Lake Eyre Basin. The classification is also applied to point source data from the Sahara to enable comparison of the relative importance of different land surfaces for dust emissions. We indicate how the scheme could be used to provide an improved characterisation of preferential dust sources in global dust-cycle models

Sources and pathways of dust during the Australian 'Millennium Drought' decade

From the late 1990s to mid-2010, Australia was affected by a prolonged period of drought, the “Millennium Drought,” during which numerous severe dust storms crossed the continent. We inspect this period to produce the first continental-scale climatology of air-parcel trajectories that is specific to dust and use it to gain new insights into dust transport dynamics over the eastern half of Australia. The analysis is based upon dust arrival times from airport meteorological observations made at nine mostly coastal cities for 2000–2009. The Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model was used to calculate 1.26 million backward trajectories from receptor cities, with only those trajectories associated with a dust storm observation considered in the analysis of dust transport. To tie dust trajectories from receptors to likely emission sources, trajectories were linked to six known major dust source regions in and around the Lake Eyre Basin. The Lake Eyre North ephemeral lake system, alluvial-dominated Channel Country, and agricultural Mallee-Riverina regions emerge as important sources for the period, providing variable contributions to different parts of the seaboard as controlled by different front-related wind systems. Our study also provides new detail regarding dust pathways from continental Australia. For the Millennium Drought we identify that the broadly established Southeast Dust Path may be more accurately subdivided into three active pathways, driven by prefrontal northerly winds and a variation in the influence of frontal westerlies. The detail of these pathways has implications for dust delivery from specific Australian sources to different marine environments