Middle Eastern desert dust on the Tibetan plateau could affect the Indian summer monsoon
Thursday, November 15, 2018 - 10:00
in Earth & Climate
Large quantities dust from the deserts of the Middle East can settle on the Tibetan Plateau, darkening the region's snowpack and accelerating snow melt. A new atmospheric modeling study suggests that, in some years, heavy springtime dust deposition can set off a series of feedbacks that intensify the Indian summer monsoon. The findings could explain a correlation between Tibetan snowpack and the Indian monsoon first observed by British meteorologist Henry Blanford in 1884.