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Do humans create mineral dust in northwest China?

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Environmental Geology

Abstract

Northwest China is a high source for great quantities of dust carried over large areas of the Asia and Pacific and to the North America. Climate index and proxy of human activity show dusty days were highly correlated with dust-driving winds in northwestern China during the 1950s to 2000. Regressions indicate that dusty days were not closely related to human activity. Under the current climate model, if dust-driving winds still decline, there may be a less dusty future in this region.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences “KZCX3-SW-341” and the Knowledge Innovation Project of CAREERI. Special thanks to Mr Baoshan He, Dr Yaowen Xie, Dr Lihua Zhou and Dr Jiawu Zhang for help in data analysis and preparation of illustrations.

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Correspondence to Xunming Wang.

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Wang, X., Zhou, Z., Dong, Z. et al. Do humans create mineral dust in northwest China?. Environ Geol 48, 609–614 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-005-1317-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-005-1317-z

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