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 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge the logistic support of Hamad Bin Khalifa University and Qatar Foundation for making this study possible. We thank Dr. Khalid Al-Subai, Acting Executive Director of QEERI, and Dr. Aurora M. Castilla for their useful comments. We would like to thank the Solar Energy Group in QEERI for providing space in the solar test facility for the installation of the QEERI monitoring station.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
PY - 2016/9
Y1 - 2016/9
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 -