资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

We investigated the variability in the North African dust transport routes over the Atlantic (NAD routes) by extracting the dust transport central axis using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aerosol data for 2001-2015. The results showed that the NAD routes can be classified into two regimes, a southern route centered at the southernmost position of 6.08 +/- 1.12 degrees N during November to March and a northern route centered at the northernmost position of 18.21 +/- 1.04 degrees N during April to October. In the southern route, large intervariation was correlated with the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), but the ITCZ and NAO jointly explained only 38% of the variation. In the northern route, the ITCZ alone explained 67% of the intervariation. The extracted trends during 2001-2015 exhibited a northward shift of 1.68 degrees for the southern route and of 0.52 degrees for the northern route. The causes for the shift were also examined.