Evaluating the Effect of Emission Schemes on Dust Simulation in East Asia During Spring 2023

In the spring of 2023, dust outbreaks were unusually active in East Asia, posing substantial risks to air quality. Accurately simulating dust storms is essential for improving regional dust prediction and impact assessment. In this study, we evaluated dust simulations over East Asia using different dust emission schemes in the FLEXDUST/FLEXPART model and quantified the regional dust budget. Overall, the GOCART (Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport) scheme shows the highest skill among the evaluated schemes. Under mild dust conditions (300–1000 μg m−3), it yielded a mean PM10 bias of −89.2 μg m−3, markedly smaller than those from other schemes/models (−450.2 to −265.6 μg m−3). It also better reproduced the dominant spatial patterns of dust optical depth over Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, with lower errors and higher correlations. Budget diagnostics show that the Taklamakan and Gobi Deserts are net dust exporters (7.4 and 11.6 Tg, respectively), whereas East Asia exhibits a negative net external flux (−12.1 Tg). The comparable magnitudes of these terms underscore the role of inter-regional transport in shaping the East Asian dust budget. These results offer insights for improving dust emission schemes in the FLEXDUST/FLEXPART model, thereby enhancing dust simulations over East Asia.