Monitoring Asian Dust Storms from NOAA-20 CrIS Double CO2 Band Observations

Abstract

Sand and dust storms (SDSs) are common environmental hazards in spring in Asian continent and have significant impacts on human health, weather, and climate. While many technologies have been developed to monitor SDSs, this study investigates the spectral characteristics of SDSs in satellite hyperspectral infrared observations and propose a new methodology to monitor the storms. An SDS emission and scattering index (SESI) is based on the differential responses of infrared CO2 shortwave and longwave IR bands to the scattering and emission of sand and dust particles. For a severe dust storm process during 14–17 March 2021, the SESI calculated by the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) observations shows very negative values in the dusty region and is consistent with the spatial distribution of dust identified from the true-color RGB imagery and the dust RGB imagery of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 Satellite. The use of the SESI index in the near-surface layer allows for monitoring of the dust storm process and enables an effective classification between surface variations and dust weather events.