The Taklamakan Desert and the Gobi Desert in East Asia constitute the second-largest sources of dust in the world. In particular, dust originating from the Gobi Desert is more susceptible to long-range transport, with consequent impacts in downwind Asian countries and the Northwest Pacific region. Two intensive dust events (the 3·15 dust event and the 3·28 dust event) were experienced in North China in March 2021. The 3·15 dust process was rated as the most intensive dust process in China in the past 10 years. In this study, by using a combination of spaceborne remote sensing datasets from geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites, ground-based columnar observations of aerosol optical parameters, meteorological reanalysis data, and backward trajectory simulations of air masses, the transport pathways and the three-dimensional structure characteristics of dust aerosols during the transport of the two dust events in March 2021 were cross-validated. The results of the study indicated that the two dust events were induced by the Mongolian cyclone. Due to the different configurations of the ground meteorological system conditions, a backflow process occurred during the 3·15 dust event transmission process. After passing over North China and the Bohai Sea, the direction of transport of the dust plume was reversed. The wind deflected from northwest to northeast, and the dust reached the eastern coastal areas of China and was finally deposited on land. The 3·28 dust event exhibited aerosol stratification in the transport path, the higher pure dust layer reached up to 9 km height, and the lower layer underwent aerosol mixing and became a polluted dust aerosol. This study implies that the investigation of dust aerosol transport and the deposition processes, the impact on the ocean, and the impact of marine aerosols on land also needs to be taken into consideration; the integration of advanced satellites and ground-based remote sensing data, the meteorological reanalysis data and the backward trajectories simulation, which complemented and verified each other, can enhance the ability to delineate the transport pathways and the three-dimensional structural characteristics of dust events.

We present absorption properties of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) sampled in six different water bodies along extreme altitudinal, latitudinal, and trophic state gradients. Three sites are in Norway: the mesotrophic Lysefjord (LF), Samnangerfjord (SF), and Røst Coastal Water (RCW); two sites are in China: the oligotrophic Lake Namtso (LN) and the eutrophic Bohai Sea (BS); and one site is in Uganda: the eutrophic Lake Victoria (LV). The site locations ranged from equatorial to subarctic regions, and they included water types from oligotrophic to eutrophic and altitudes from 0 m to 4700 m. The mean CDOM absorption coefficients at 440 nm [ $a_{\mathrm{CDOM}}\left(440\right)$ ] and 320 nm [ $a_{\mathrm{CDOM}}\left(320\right)$ ] varied in the ranges 0.063–0.35 m ${}^{-1}$ and 0.34–2.28 m ${}^{-1}$ , respectively, with highest values in LV, Uganda and the lowest in the high-altitude LN, Tibet. The mean spectral slopes $S_{280-500}$ and $S_{350-500}$ were found to vary in the ranges of 0.017–0.032 nm ${}^{-1}$ and 0.013–0.015 nm ${}^{-1}$ , respectively. The highest mean value for $S_{280-500}$ as well as the lowest mean value for $S_{350-500}$ were found in LN. Scatter plots of $S_{280-500}$ versus $a_{\mathrm{CDOM}}\left(440\right)$ and $a_{\mathrm{CDOM}}\left(320\right)$ values ranges revealed a close connection between RCW, LF, and SF on one side, and BS and LV on the other side. CDOM seems to originate from terrestrial sources in LF, SF, BS, and LV, while RCW is characterized by autochthonous-oceanic CDOM, and LN by autochthonous CDOM. Photobleaching of CDOM is prominent in LN, demonstrated by absorption towards lower wavelengths in the UV spectrum. We conclude that high altitudes, implying high levels of UV radiation and oligotrophic water conditions are most important for making a significant change in CDOM absorption properties.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) has profound thermal and dynamic influences on the atmospheric circulation, energy, and water cycles of the climate system, which make the clouds over the TP the forefront of atmospheric and climate science. However, the highest altitude and most complex terrain of the TP make the retrieval of cloud properties challenging. In order to understand the performance and limitations of cloud retrievals over the TP derived from the state-of-the-art Advanced Geosynchronous Radiation Imager (AGRI) onboard the new generation of Chinese Geostationary (GEO) meteorological satellites Fengyun-4 (FY-4), a three-month comparison was conducted between FY-4A/AGRI and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for both cloud detection and cloud top height (CTH) pixel-level retrievals. For cloud detection, the AGRI and MODIS cloud mask retrievals showed a fractional agreement of 0.93 for cloudy conditions and 0.73 for clear scenes. AGRI tended to miss lower CTH clouds due to the lack of thermal contrast between the clouds and the surface of the TP. For cloud top height retrievals, the comparison showed that on average, AGRI underestimated the CTH relative to MODIS by 1.366 ± 2.235 km, and their differences presented a trend of increasing with height.