Projected Changes in Energy and Hydrologic Budget over Asian Dust Source Regions

Asian dust storms (ADSs) are widely considered to have originated in the Taklimakan and Gobi Deserts, Inner Mongolia, and northeast China. Because dust emissions are dependent on surface conditions such as wind speed and soil moisture, accurate land surface conditions in dust source areas are essential. We use regional climate projections from the Regional Climate Model version 4 (RegCM4) along with emission scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways; RCP) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios to look into how the energy and water budgets of ADS source regions change in response to different climate change scenarios. To quantify changes in energy and hydrologic components over the source regions of ADS, we use the University of Torino model of land Processes Interaction with Atmosphere (UTOPIA), a diagnostic one-dimensional model that represents the interactions between the atmosphere, land surface, vegetation, and soil layers. We will examine the energy and hydrologic climate projections based on two emission scenarios (e.g., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) with respect to ADS predictions.