Dust aerosols are a major type of aerosol over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and influence climate at local to regional scales through their effects on thermal radiation and snow‐albedo feedback. Based on the Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA‐2) aerosol data set, we report an increase of 34% in the atmospheric dust in the high troposphere over the TP during the spring season in the 2000s in comparison to the 1990s. This result is supported by an increase of 157% (46%) in the dust deposition flux in the Mugagangqiong (Tanggula) ice cores and an increase of 69% in the aerosol index (AI) from Earth Probe (EP) Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), as well as by increases of simulated dust aerosols over the TP derived from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The increased atmospheric dust over the TP is caused by two aspects: (1) There was a higher dust emission over the Middle East during the 2000s than during the 1990s, which is explained by less precipitation and 25.8% higher cyclone frequency over the Middle East. The increased cyclone frequency uplift more dust from the surface over the Middle East to the central Asia in the middle troposphere. (2) Enhanced midlatitude zonal winds help transport more dust in the middle troposphere from central Asia to Northwest China, and thereafter, an increase in northerly winds over Northwest China propels dust southward to the TP.

The effects of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) under negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) phase on the Asian dust activity are investigated for springs of the period 1961–2002. The spring dust index (DI) describing the monthly frequencies of three types of dust events (e.g. dust storm, blowing dust, and floating dust) exhibits a significant increase in the years of negative AO phase (hereafter AO−) and El Niño, compared with that in the years of AO− and La Niña. Averaged over all observation stations, the spring DI (49.7) during the El Niño/AO− years is higher by 11.4% or 29.8% than that (38.3) during the La Niña/AO− years. We suggest possible physical mechanism that the anomalous large‐scale environments associated with AO− and El Niño are more effective to provide favourable conditions to enhance Asian dust activity. During the El Niño/AO− years, meridional gradients of pressure and temperature over the dust source regions are significantly enhanced by decreasing the geopotential height and warming air temperature that originated from the north and south of source regions, respectively, under the influence of AO− and El Niño. These also intensify the zonal wind shear and atmospheric baroclinicity, thereby producing enhanced cyclogenesis and dust occurrences over the major source regions. At the same time, dust transport paths with the stronger westerly winds are developed by the combined constraints of anomalous cyclone over the Siberia and the Mongolia and anomalous anticyclone over the western North Pacific, and thus strengthen dust transport to the downwind regions.