Asian Dust Network (AD-Net)

    This logo mark symbloizes the concept of Asian dust network (AD-Net). Upper left image is taken from a famous painting of Sandro Botticelli, "Nascita di Venere (The Birth of Venus)". Our efforts can be compared to remove a veil of Nature. His/Her breath causes a dust storm as indicated by the weather symbols. The center image is taken from the time-to-hieght profile of the depolarization ratio by lidar at Tsukuba, Japan (NIES) on Januray 1st, 2001; the first Asian dust event in the 21th century. It also shows a typical THI imagery of Asian dust. The upper middle image shows the forecasted 3D dust image with the chemical weather forecasting system (CFORS) developed by Itsushi Uno. The vector which turns around the earth indicates that an effort to expand the network sites, Asian dust travelling the hemisphere, and the satellite orbit. (T. Murayama)

Preface:

    Asian Dust Network (AD-Net) is an international virtual community born in February 2001, based on four years continuation of spring campaign (from March 1st to May 31st) for the rapid communication through the internet on Asian dust events since 1997. The first campaign was mainly led by lidar groups and limited in Japan. Hence, the former activity was tentatively named as Lidar Network Observation of Kosa in Japan (LINK-J, Kosa is Japanese word that means "yellow sand").

    Since 1998, we exchanged Asian dust information with lidar and other surface observations in East Asia countries: China, Korea and Japan. We encountered well-known huge Asian dust events in April 1998 and demonstrated the coordinated network worked effectively (T. Murayama et al, JGR, 2001). In these unusual events, a large amount of Asian dust was transported to North America beyond the Pacific (R. Husar et al, JGR, 2001).

    Since 1999, the community was expanded and included various fields of the atmospheric sciences, e.g., lidar, radiation, and other ground chemical and physical measurements, transport model, and satellite remote-sensing groups. We believe that our tradition of open and free atmosphere must proceed the atmospheric science of aerosol and climate since there are no boundary for travelling aerosols. We named our virtual community as AD-Net that might sound also Advanced Aerosol-Detection Network and so on. We hope to have productive results to understand our unique planet, which have never realized in the previous century, and make a further history in the 21st century. Thank you very much for comprehensive understandings of participants.

Purposes and Scope:

    The initial purpose of the ne twork was to obtain 3D or 4D pictures of Asian dust transportation through the distributed lidar sites. Now owing to expansion of the community, we can expect many possibilities of our activity. For example, we may list up the following topics of interest:

• Detailed mechanism of transportation of Asian dust and other aerosols with ground- based observations, satellite remote sensing, and transport models
• Optical properties of Asian dust and other aerosols by lidar, Sun/sky photometric instruments, and satellite remote sensing
• Trans-Pacific Asian dust
• Dust-clouds (water clouds/cirrus) interaction
• Mixing state of dust and other aerosols
• Evolution of Asian dust aerosols during the transportation
• Impact of Asian dust to ocean Bio-products
• World-Wide Aerosol Watch Program

    We hope our activity is mutually useful and beneficial for the participants to proceed individual researches and collaborations.

Data Policy:

    Promptly up-loaded data in this homepage and Asian Lidar Observation Network, Data Exchange Page (/AsiaNet/) are mainly for the supports of exchanged mails and also to support other field campaigns in East Asia. In general, tremendous works have been done behind these data. So please take a permission from the researcher who supplied the data when you want to use the data for public use.

AD-Net Data Exchange Page

Contact persons