scholarly journals The role of aerosol-cloud interactions in linking anthropogenic pollution over southern West Africa and dust emission over the Sahara

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Menut ◽  
Paolo Tuccella ◽  
Cyrille Flamant ◽  
Adrien Deroubaix ◽  
Marco Gaetani
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Mineral Dust ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Dust Emission ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Anthropogenic Emissions ◽  
Dust Emissions ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
Aerosol Cloud Interactions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The aerosol direct and indirect effects are studied over West Africa in the summer of 2016 using the coupled WRF-CHIMERE regional model including aerosol-cloud interaction parametrization. First, a reference simulation is performed and compared with observations acquired during the Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) field campaign which took place in June and July 2016. Sensitivity experiments are also designed to gain insights into the impact of the aerosols dominating the atmospheric composition in southern West Africa (one simulation with halved anthropogenic emissions and one with halved mineral dust emissions). The most important effect of aerosol-cloud interactions is found for the mineral dust scenario and it is shown that halving the emissions of mineral dust decreases the 2-m temperature by 0.5 K and the boundary layer height by 25 m in monthly average and over the Saharan region. The presence of dust aerosols also increases (resp. decreases) the shortwave (resp. longwave) radiation at the surface by 25 W/m2. It is also shown that the decrease of anthropogenic emissions along the coast has an impact on the mineral dust load over West Africa by increasing their emissions in Saharan region. It is due to a mechanism where particulate matter concentrations are decreased along the coast, imposing a latitudinal shift of the monsoonal precipitation, and, in turn, an increase of the surface wind speed over arid areas, inducing more mineral dust emissions.

scholarly journals The role of aerosol–radiation–cloud interactions in linking anthropogenic pollution over southern west Africa and dust emission over the Sahara

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (23) ◽  
pp. 14657-14676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Menut ◽  
Paolo Tuccella ◽  
Cyrille Flamant ◽  
Adrien Deroubaix ◽  
Marco Gaetani
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Mineral Dust ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Dust Emission ◽  
Longwave Radiation ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Anthropogenic Emissions ◽  
Dust Emissions ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The aerosol direct and indirect effects are studied over west Africa in the summer of 2016 using the coupled WRF-CHIMERE regional model including aerosol–cloud interaction parameterization. First, a reference simulation is performed and compared with observations acquired during the Dynamics-aerosol-chemistry-cloud interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) field campaign which took place in June and July 2016. Sensitivity experiments are also designed to gain insights into the impact of the aerosols dominating the atmospheric composition in southern west Africa (one simulation with halved anthropogenic emissions and one with halved mineral dust emissions). The most important effect of aerosol–cloud interactions is found for the mineral dust scenario, and it is shown that halving the emissions of mineral dust decreases the 2 m temperature by 0.5 K and the boundary layer height by 25 m on a monthly average (July 2016) and over the Saharan region. The presence of dust aerosols also increases (decreases) the shortwave (longwave) radiation at the surface by 25 W m−2. It is also shown that the decrease of anthropogenic emissions along the coast has an impact on the mineral dust load over west Africa by increasing their emissions in the Saharan region. It is due to a mechanism where particulate matter concentrations are decreased along the coast, imposing a latitudinal shift of the monsoonal precipitation and, in turn, an increase of the surface wind speed over arid areas, inducing more mineral dust emissions.

scholarly journals Impacts of aerosol-cloud interactions on past and future changes in tropospheric composition

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 4115-4129 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Unger ◽  
S. Menon ◽  
D. M. Koch ◽  
D. T. Shindell
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Wet Deposition ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Tropospheric Chemistry ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Sulfate Production ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
Aerosol Cloud Interactions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The development of effective emissions control policies that are beneficial to both climate and air quality requires a detailed understanding of all the feedbacks in the atmospheric composition and climate system. We perform sensitivity studies with a global atmospheric composition-climate model to assess the impact of aerosols on tropospheric chemistry through their modification on clouds, aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI). The model includes coupling between both tropospheric gas-phase and aerosol chemistry and aerosols and liquid-phase clouds. We investigate past impacts from preindustrial (PI) to present day (PD) and future impacts from PD to 2050 (for the moderate IPCC A1B scenario) that embrace a wide spectrum of precursor emission changes and consequential ACI. The aerosol indirect effect (AIE) is estimated to be −2.0 Wm−2 for PD-PI and −0.6 Wm−2 for 2050-PD, at the high end of current estimates. Inclusion of ACI substantially impacts changes in global mean methane lifetime across both time periods, enhancing the past and future increases by 10% and 30%, respectively. In regions where pollution emissions increase, inclusion of ACI leads to 20% enhancements in in-cloud sulfate production and ~10% enhancements in sulfate wet deposition that is displaced away from the immediate source regions. The enhanced in-cloud sulfate formation leads to larger increases in surface sulfate across polluted regions (~10–30%). Nitric acid wet deposition is dampened by 15–20% across the industrialized regions due to ACI allowing additional re-release of reactive nitrogen that contributes to 1–2 ppbv increases in surface ozone in outflow regions. Our model findings indicate that ACI must be considered in studies of methane trends and projections of future changes to particulate matter air quality.

scholarly journals Radiative forcing of climate change from the Copernicus reanalysis of atmospheric composition

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1649-1677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bellouin ◽  
Will Davies ◽  
Keith P. Shine ◽  
Johannes Quaas ◽  
Johannes Mülmenstädt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Tropospheric Ozone ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Global Average ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
Aerosol Cloud Interactions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Radiative forcing provides an important basis for understanding and predicting global climate changes, but its quantification has historically been done independently for different forcing agents, has involved observations to varying degrees, and studies have not always included a detailed analysis of uncertainties. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service reanalysis is an optimal combination of modelling and observations of atmospheric composition. It provides a unique opportunity to rely on observations to quantify the monthly and spatially resolved global distributions of radiative forcing consistently for six of the largest forcing agents: carbon dioxide, methane, tropospheric ozone, stratospheric ozone, aerosol–radiation interactions, and aerosol–cloud interactions. These radiative-forcing estimates account for adjustments in stratospheric temperatures but do not account for rapid adjustments in the troposphere. On a global average and over the period 2003–2017, stratospherically adjusted radiative forcing of carbon dioxide has averaged +1.89 W m−2 (5 %–95 % confidence interval: 1.50 to 2.29 W m−2) relative to 1750 and increased at a rate of 18 % per decade. The corresponding values for methane are +0.46 (0.36 to 0.56) W m−2 and 4 % per decade but with a clear acceleration since 2007. Ozone radiative-forcing averages +0.32 (0 to 0.64) W m−2, almost entirely contributed by tropospheric ozone since stratospheric ozone radiative forcing is only +0.003 W m−2. Aerosol radiative-forcing averages −1.25 (−1.98 to −0.52) W m−2, with aerosol–radiation interactions contributing −0.56 W m−2 and aerosol–cloud interactions contributing −0.69 W m−2 to the global average. Both have been relatively stable since 2003. Taking the six forcing agents together, there is no indication of a sustained slowdown or acceleration in the rate of increase in anthropogenic radiative forcing over the period. These ongoing radiative-forcing estimates will monitor the impact on the Earth's energy budget of the dramatic emission reductions towards net-zero that are needed to limit surface temperature warming to the Paris Agreement temperature targets. Indeed, such impacts should be clearly manifested in radiative forcing before being clear in the temperature record. In addition, this radiative-forcing dataset can provide the input distributions needed by researchers involved in monitoring of climate change, detection and attribution, interannual to decadal prediction, and integrated assessment modelling. The data generated by this work are available at https://doi.org/10.24380/ads.1hj3y896 (Bellouin et al., 2020b).

scholarly journals Quantifying the impact of sub-grid surface wind variability on sea salt and dust emissions in CAM5

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 7249-7312
Author(s):  
K. Zhang ◽  
C. Zhao ◽  
H. Wan ◽  
Y. Qian ◽  
R. C. Easter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Dust Emission ◽  
Surface Wind Speed ◽  
Sea Salt ◽  
Dust Emissions ◽  
Wind Variability ◽  
Wind Events ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Meso Scale

Abstract. This paper evaluates the impact of sub-grid variability of surface wind on sea salt and dust emissions in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5). The basic strategy is to calculate emission fluxes multiple times, using different wind speed samples of a Weibull probability distribution derived from model-predicted grid-box mean quantities. In order to derive the Weibull distribution, the sub-grid standard deviation of surface wind speed is estimated by taking into account four mechanisms: turbulence under neutral and stable conditions, dry convective eddies, moist convective eddies over the ocean, and air motions induced by meso-scale systems and fine-scale topography over land. The contributions of turbulence and dry convective eddy are parameterized using schemes from the literature, while the wind variabilities caused by moist convective eddies and fine-scale topography are estimated using empirical relationships derived from an operational weather analysis dataset at 15 km resolution. The estimated sub-grid standard deviations of surface wind speed agree well with reference results derived from one year of global weather analysis at 15 km resolution and from two regional model simulations with 3 km grid spacing. The wind-distribution-based emission calculations are implemented in CAM5. Simulations at 2° resolution indicate that sub-grid wind variability has relatively small impacts (about 7 % increase) on the global annual mean emission of sea salt aerosols, but considerable influence on the emission of dust. Among the considered mechanisms, dry convective eddies and meso-scale flows associated with topography are major causes of dust emission enhancement. With all the four mechanisms included and without additional adjustment of uncertain parameters in the model, the simulated global and annual mean dust emission increase by about 50 % compared to the default model. By tuning the globally constant dust emission scale factor, the global annual mean dust emission, aerosol optical depth, and top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes can be adjusted to the level of the default model, but the frequency distribution of dust emission changes, with more contribution from weaker wind events and less contribution from stronger wind events.

scholarly journals Quantifying the impact of sub-grid surface wind variability on sea salt and dust emissions in CAM5

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 607-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Zhang ◽  
Chun Zhao ◽  
Hui Wan ◽  
Yun Qian ◽  
Richard C. Easter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Dust Emission ◽  
Surface Wind Speed ◽  
Sea Salt ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Dust Emissions ◽  
Wind Variability ◽  
Wind Events ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. This paper evaluates the impact of sub-grid variability of surface wind on sea salt and dust emissions in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5). The basic strategy is to calculate emission fluxes multiple times, using different wind speed samples of a Weibull probability distribution derived from model-predicted grid-box mean quantities. In order to derive the Weibull distribution, the sub-grid standard deviation of surface wind speed is estimated by taking into account four mechanisms: turbulence under neutral and stable conditions, dry convective eddies, moist convective eddies over the ocean, and air motions induced by mesoscale systems and fine-scale topography over land. The contributions of turbulence and dry convective eddy are parameterized using schemes from the literature. Wind variabilities caused by moist convective eddies and fine-scale topography are estimated using empirical relationships derived from an operational weather analysis data set at 15 km resolution. The estimated sub-grid standard deviations of surface wind speed agree well with reference results derived from 1 year of global weather analysis at 15 km resolution and from two regional model simulations with  3 km grid spacing.The wind-distribution-based emission calculations are implemented in CAM5. In terms of computational cost, the increase in total simulation time turns out to be less than 3 %. Simulations at 2° resolution indicate that sub-grid wind variability has relatively small impacts (about 7 % increase) on the global annual mean emission of sea salt aerosols, but considerable influence on the emission of dust. Among the considered mechanisms, dry convective eddies and mesoscale flows associated with topography are major causes of dust emission enhancement. With all the four mechanisms included and without additional adjustment of uncertain parameters in the model, the simulated global and annual mean dust emission increase by about 50 % compared to the default model. By tuning the globally constant dust emission scale factor, the global annual mean dust emission, aerosol optical depth, and top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes can be adjusted to the level of the default model, but the frequency distribution of dust emission changes, with more contribution from weaker wind events and less contribution from stronger wind events. In Africa and Asia, the overall frequencies of occurrence of dust emissions increase, and the seasonal variations are enhanced, while the geographical patterns of the emission frequency show little change.

scholarly journals Impacts of aerosol indirect effect on past and future changes in tropospheric composition

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 4691-4725 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Unger ◽  
S. Menon ◽  
D. T. Shindell ◽  
D. M. Koch
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Wet Deposition ◽  
Tropospheric Chemistry ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Aerosol Indirect Effect ◽  
Sulfate Production ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
Aerosol Cloud Interactions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The development of effective emissions control policies that are beneficial to both climate and air quality requires a detailed understanding of all the feedbacks in the atmospheric composition and climate system. We perform sensitivity studies with a global atmospheric composition-climate model to assess the impact of aerosols on tropospheric chemistry through their modification on clouds, the aerosol indirect effect (AIE). The model includes coupling between both tropospheric gas-phase and aerosol chemistry and aerosols and liquid-phase clouds. We investigate past impacts from preindustrial (PI) to present day (PD) and future impacts from PD to 2050 (for the moderate IPCC A1B scenario) that embrace a wide spectrum of precursor emission changes and consequential aerosol-cloud interactions. The AIE is estimated to be −2.0 W m−2 for PD–PI and −0.6 W m−2 for 2050–PD, at the high end of current estimates. Inclusion of aerosol-cloud interactions substantially impacts changes in global mean methane lifetime across both time periods, enhancing the past and future increases by 10% and 30%, respectively. In regions where pollution emissions increase, inclusion of aerosol-cloud effects leads to 20% enhancements in in-cloud sulfate production and ~10% enhancements in sulfate wet deposition that is displaced away from the immediate source regions. The enhanced in-cloud sulfate formation leads to larger increases in surface sulfate across polluted regions (~10–30%). Nitric acid wet deposition is dampened by 15–20% across the industrialized regions due to AIE allowing additional re-release of reactive nitrogen that contributes to 1–2 ppbv increases in surface ozone in outflow regions. Our model findings indicate that aerosol-cloud interactions must be considered in studies of methane trends and projections of future changes to particulate matter air quality.

scholarly journals Aerosol forecast over the Mediterranean area during July 2013 (ADRIMED/CHARMEX)

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (14) ◽  
pp. 7897-7911 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Menut ◽  
G. Rea ◽  
S. Mailler ◽  
D. Khvorostyanov ◽  
S. Turquety
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Mineral Dust ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Dust Emission ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. The ADRIMED (Aerosol Direct Radiative Impact on the regional climate in the MEDiterranean region) project was dedicated to study the atmospheric composition during the summer 2013 in the European Mediterranean region. During its campaign experiment part, the WRF (Weather Research and Forecast Model) and CHIMERE models were used in the forecast mode in order to decide whether intensive observation periods should be triggered. Each day, a simulation of 4 days was performed, corresponding to (D-1) to (D+2) forecast leads. The goal of this study was to determine whether the model forecast spread is lower or greater than the model biases compared to observations. It is shown that the differences between observations and the model are always higher than those between the forecasts. Among all forcing types used in the chemistry-transport model, it is shown that the strong bias and other related low forecast scores are mainly due to the forecast accuracy of the wind speed, which is used both for the mineral dust emissions (a threshold process) and for the long-range transport of aerosol: the surface wind speed forecast spread can reach 50%, leading to mineral dust emission forecast spread of up to 30%. These variations are responsible for a moderate forecast spread of the surface PM10 (a few percentage points) and for a large spread (more than 50%) in the mineral dust concentration at higher altitudes, leading to a mean AOD (aerosol optical depth) forecast spread of ±10%.

scholarly journals The spatial distribution of mineral dust and its shortwave radiative forcing over North Africa: modeling sensitivities to dust emissions and aerosol size treatments

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (18) ◽  
pp. 8821-8838 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Zhao ◽  
X. Liu ◽  
L. R. Leung ◽  
B. Johnson ◽  
S. A. McFarlane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Mineral Dust ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Dust Emission ◽  
Radiative Properties ◽  
Lower Atmosphere ◽  
Dust Particles ◽  
Dust Emissions ◽  
Sahel Region

Abstract. A fully coupled meteorology-chemistry-aerosol model (WRF-Chem) is applied to simulate mineral dust and its shortwave (SW) radiative forcing over North Africa. Two dust emission schemes (GOCART and DUSTRAN) and two aerosol models (MADE/SORGAM and MOSAIC) are adopted in simulations to investigate the modeling sensitivities to dust emissions and aerosol size treatments. The modeled size distribution and spatial variability of mineral dust and its radiative properties are evaluated using measurements (ground-based, aircraft, and satellites) during the AMMA SOP0 campaign from 6 January to 3 February of 2006 (the SOP0 period) over North Africa. Two dust emission schemes generally simulate similar spatial distributions and temporal evolutions of dust emissions. Simulations using the GOCART scheme with different initial (emitted) dust size distributions require ~40% difference in total emitted dust mass to produce similar SW radiative forcing of dust over the Sahel region. The modal approach of MADE/SORGAM retains 25% more fine dust particles (radius<1.25 μm) but 8% less coarse dust particles (radius>1.25 μm) than the sectional approach of MOSAIC in simulations using the same size-resolved dust emissions. Consequently, MADE/SORGAM simulates 11% higher AOD, up to 13% lower SW dust heating rate, and 15% larger (more negative) SW dust radiative forcing at the surface than MOSAIC over the Sahel region. In the daytime of the SOP0 period, the model simulations show that the mineral dust heats the lower atmosphere with an average rate of 0.8 ± 0.5 K day−1 over the Niamey vicinity and 0.5 ± 0.2 K day−1 over North Africa and reduces the downwelling SW radiation at the surface by up to 58 W m−2 with an average of 22 W m−2 over North Africa. This highlights the importance of including dust radiative impact in understanding the regional climate of North Africa. When compared to the available measurements, the WRF-Chem simulations can generally capture the measured features of mineral dust and its radiative properties over North Africa, suggesting that the model is suitable for more extensive simulations of dust impact on regional climate over North Africa.

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