TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of atmospheric dust emission schemes on dust production and concentration over the Arabian Peninsula
AU - Fountoukis, Christos
AU - Ackermann, Luis
AU - Ayoub, Mohammed A.
AU - Gladich, Ivan
AU - Hoehn, Ross D.
AU - Skillern, Adam
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - This study examines the impact of two of the most advanced dust emission schemes on the predictions of the weather research and forecasting model with chemistry (WRF-Chem) over the Middle East during a summer time period. Results show significant differences between the two simulations in the spatial distribution of dust emissions as well as in their size-resolved mass discretization. The AFWA scheme simulation predicts 30 % higher dust emission fluxes than the S11 module over the Arabian Peninsula (6.7 μg m−2 s−1 compared to 4.5 μg m−2 s−1, respectively). In the S11 simulation 70 % of the emitted dust is in the 10–20 μm size range while the AFWA simulation assigns 50 % of dust emitted particles in the 6–12 μm size section. Both simulations reproduce the majority of the ambient PM10 data (more than 70 %) within a factor of two. However, the S11 simulation predicts, on average, 50 % lower PM10 concentrations compared to AFWA over the high resolution (2 × 2 km2) domain of Qatar. Previous applications of WRF-Chem may have substantially overestimated the simulated dust in this region.
AB - This study examines the impact of two of the most advanced dust emission schemes on the predictions of the weather research and forecasting model with chemistry (WRF-Chem) over the Middle East during a summer time period. Results show significant differences between the two simulations in the spatial distribution of dust emissions as well as in their size-resolved mass discretization. The AFWA scheme simulation predicts 30 % higher dust emission fluxes than the S11 module over the Arabian Peninsula (6.7 μg m−2 s−1 compared to 4.5 μg m−2 s−1, respectively). In the S11 simulation 70 % of the emitted dust is in the 10–20 μm size range while the AFWA simulation assigns 50 % of dust emitted particles in the 6–12 μm size section. Both simulations reproduce the majority of the ambient PM10 data (more than 70 %) within a factor of two. However, the S11 simulation predicts, on average, 50 % lower PM10 concentrations compared to AFWA over the high resolution (2 × 2 km2) domain of Qatar. Previous applications of WRF-Chem may have substantially overestimated the simulated dust in this region.
KW - Aerosol size distribution
KW - Atmospheric particulate matter
KW - Chemical transport modeling
KW - WRF-Chem
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85034025874&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s40808-016-0181-z
DO - 10.1007/s40808-016-0181-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85034025874
SN - 2363-6203
VL - 2
JO - Modeling Earth Systems and Environment
JF - Modeling Earth Systems and Environment
IS - 3
M1 - 115
ER -