Dust aerosol can cause the change in the land surface emissivity in split window by radiative forcing (RF). Firstly, the present paper explained from the microscopic point of view the extinction properties of dust aerosols in the 11 and 12 μm channels, and their influence on the land surface emissivity. Secondly, on April 29, 2011, in the northern region of Inner Mongolia a strong sandstorm outbroke, and based on the analysis of the changes in land surface emissivity, this paper proposed a dust identification method by using the variation of emissivity. At last, the dust identification result was evaluated by the dust monitoring product provided by the National Satellite Meteorological Center. The result shows that under the assumption that the 12 μm emissivity equals to 1, using 11 μm relative emissivity could identify dust cover region effectively, and the 11 μm relative emissivity to a certain extent represented the intensity information of dust aerosol.