Abstract. Asian dust is an important source of atmospheric ice-nucleating particles (INPs). However, the freezing activity of airborne Asian dust, especially its sensitivity to particle size, is poorly understood. In this study we report the first INP measurement of size-resolved airborne mineral dust collected during East Asian dust events. The measured total INP concentrations in the immersion mode ranged from 10−2 to 102 L−1 in dust events at temperatures between −25 and −5 ∘C. The average contributions of heat-sensitive INPs at three
temperatures, −10, −15, and −20 ∘C, were 81±12 %, 70±15 %, and 38±21 %, respectively, suggesting that proteinaceous biological materials have a substantial effect on the ice
nucleation properties of Asian airborne mineral dust at high temperatures.
The dust particles which originated from China's northwest deserts are more
efficient INPs compared to those from northern regions. In general, there
was no significant difference in the ice nucleation properties between East
Asian dust particles and other regions in the world. An explicit size
dependence of both INP concentration and surface ice-active-site density was observed. The nucleation efficiency of dust particles increased with
increasing particle size, while the INP concentration first increased
rapidly and then leveled, due to the significant decrease in the number
concentration of larger particles. A new set of parameterizations for INP
activity based on size-resolved nucleation properties of Asian mineral dust
particles were developed over an extended temperature range (−35 to −6 ∘C). These size-dependent parameterizations require only particle size distribution as input and can be easily applied in models.