This pair of Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer images, acquired 16 days apart, covers the Liaoning region of China and parts of northern and western Korea. They contrast a relatively clear day (March 23, 2002) with one in which the skies were extremely dusty (April 8, 2002). In the later view (right-hand image), the dust obscures most of the surface, although the Liaodong Peninsula extending between the Bo Hai Sea and Korea Bay is faintly visible at the lower left. Wave features are apparent within the dust layer.
Dust blowing off the Gobi desert eastward across the China toward the Pacific Ocean is a common event in April. Space Shuttle astronauts have photographed these dusts storms several times. These photographs, taken by astronauts on April 25, 1990, show a thick blanket of dust that entirely obscures the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. The dust is being transported from west (left) to east (right). The mountainous spine of the peninsula induces gravity waves in the dust cloud on the downwind (east) side.
March often brings an increase in dust storms to East Asia, and 2008 proved no exception. In early March 2008, the characteristic “yellow dust” from the Gobi Desert blew eastward over the Beijing region, the Yellow Sea, and North and South Korea.