Regional characteristics of dust storms observed in the Alxa Plateau of China from 1961 to 2005

The Alxa Plateau has one of the highest frequencies of dust events in China and one of the greatest contributions to East Asian dust. We compiled climate and dust storm data for the Alxa Plateau based on observational data from ten meteorological stations from 1960 to 2005. Our analysis showed that Guaizihu and Minqin dust centers had >26 days per year with dust storms versus 7–13 days for other desert and Gobi regions on the plateau. Variations in dust storm frequency during the study period showed that dust storms increased during the 1960s (until 1972), decreased until the late 1990s, and then increased slightly until 2002. About 75.6% of dust storms occurred in March, April, May, June, and July. Between 78.2 and 88.1% of the dust storms occurred during the daytime and 28.9% of the dust storms occurred between 13:00 and 16:00. The mean durations of dust storms in the Alxa Plateau ranged from 715 to 3,462 min. The annual number of minutes of dust storms averaged >1,800 min in the western Alxa Plateau. Dust storm frequency was inversely related to duration: the longer the average duration, the lower the frequency of such storms.