Here's a little more for this story you posted: China's dust storm expected to reach U.S. http://www.king5.com/nationalnews/NW_032102ENBduststorm.f21f39.html

Your above link reminds me of NASA's TOMS aerosol link: ftp://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/eptoms/images/display_aero/y2002 (This link will just show all images for 2002.

You already have this link, almost.) My concern, though, is: NASA might lie yet again with their TOMS images, so nobody gets alarmed. I think it stinks too, but: sometimes anomalous images stay up on their site long enough to download. If anyone is lucky enough to grab an anomalous TOMS image before it gets deleted, that'll help to see the truth. related recent dust storm links:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_551652.html?menu=news.latestheadlines http://www.nandotimes.com/world/story/314247p-2698221c.html http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2002/3/20/latest/3559Severedus&sec=latest