Record heavy mineral dust outbreaks over Korea in 2010 : Two cases observed with multiwavelength aerosol/depolarization/Raman-quartz lidar

Abstract

We report on two strong events of transport of mineral dust from Central Asia across Korea. The events took place in March and November 2010. The November case is important as fall is not a typical time for strong dust outbreaks in East Asia. We observed the dust with a multiwavelength aerosol/depolarization/Raman quartz lidar. The record PM-10 concentration of nearly 1600 mu g/m(3) in March 2010 exceeds the record value of 1470 mu g/m(3) measured in Seoul in March 2002. The event in November was the strongest case of dust transport ever observed over Korea in fall. We find up to 360 mu g/m(3) dust in heights above 250 m which is significantly different from the ground-based PM-10 observations