WRF-Chem simulations of a typical pre-monsoon dust storm in northern India: influences on aerosol optical properties and radiation budget

Abstract. The impact of a typical pre-monsoon season (April–June) dust storm event on the regional aerosol optical properties and radiation budget in northern India is analyzed. The dust storm event lasted from 17 to 22 April 2010 and the WRF-Chem model estimated total dust emissions of 7.5 Tg over the model domain. Both in situ (AERONET) and satellite observations show significant increase (>50%) in local to regional scale aerosol optical depth (AOD) and decrease (>70%) in the Angström exponent (α) during this period. Amongst the AERONET sites in this region, Kanpur was influenced the most where the AOD reached up to 2.1 and the α decreased to −0.09 during the dust storm period. The WRF-Chem model reproduced the spatial and temporal distributions of dust plumes and aerosol optical properties but generally underestimated the AOD. The average MODIS and WRF-Chem AOD (550 nm) values in high dust laden region are estimated as 0.80 ± 0.30 and 0.68 ± 0.28, respectively. Model results show that dust particles cool the surface and the top of the atmosphere, and warm the atmosphere. The regionally averaged radiative perturbation due to dust aerosols is estimated as −2.0 ± 3.0 W m−2 at the top of the atmosphere, 2.3 ± 1.8 W m−2 in the atmosphere and −4.4 ± 3.1 W m−2 at the surface. The impact of these radiative perturbations on the surface energy budget is estimated to be small on a regional scale but significant locally.

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WRF-Chem simulations of a typical pre-monsoon dust storm in northern India: influences on aerosol optical properties and radiation budget

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-14-2431-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (5) ◽

pp. 2431-2446 ◽

Cited By ~ 78

Author(s):

R. Kumar ◽

M. C. Barth ◽

G. G. Pfister ◽

M. Naja ◽

G. P. Brasseur

Keyword(s):

Optical Properties ◽

Dust Storm ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Dust Particles ◽

Storm Event ◽

Aerosol Optical Properties ◽

Northern India ◽

Dust Storm Event ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The impact of a typical pre-monsoon season (April–June) dust storm event on the regional aerosol optical properties and radiation budget in northern India is analyzed. The dust storm event lasted from 17 to 22 April 2010 and the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) estimated total dust emissions of 7.5 Tg over the model domain. Both in situ (AERONET – Aerosol Robotic Network) and satellite observations show significant increase (> 50%) in local to regional scale aerosol optical depth (AOD) and decrease (> 70%) in the Ångström exponent (α) during this period. Amongst the AERONET sites in this region, Kanpur was influenced the most, where the AOD reached up to 2.1 and the α decreased to −0.09 during the dust storm period. The WRF-Chem model reproduced the spatial and temporal distributions of dust plumes and aerosol optical properties but generally underestimated the AOD. The average MODIS and WRF-Chem AOD (550 nm) values in a subregion (70–80° E, 25–30° N) affected the most by the dust storm are estimated as 0.80 ± 0.30 and 0.68 ± 0.28, respectively. Model results show that dust particles cool the surface and the top of the atmosphere, but warm the atmosphere itself. The radiative perturbation due to dust aerosols averaged over the subregion is estimated as −2.9 ± 3.1 W m−2 at the top of the atmosphere, 5.1 ± 3.3 W m−2 in the atmosphere and −8.0 ± 3.3 W m−2 at the surface. The simulated instantaneous cooling under the dust plume was much higher and reached −227 and −70 W m−2 at the surface and the top of the atmosphere, respectively. The impact of these radiative perturbations on the surface energy budget is estimated to be small on a regional scale but significant locally.

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Aerosol effects modeling using an online coupling between the meteorological model WRF and the chemistry-transport model CHIMERE

10.5194/gmd-2016-73 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Régis Briant ◽

Paolo Tuccella ◽

Adrien Deroubaix ◽

Dmitry Khvorostyanov ◽

Laurent Menut ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Optical Properties ◽

Transport Model ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Total Duration ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Aerosol Optical Properties ◽

Chemistry Transport Model ◽

Meteorological Model ◽

Western Asia ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The presence of airborne aerosols affects the meteorology as it induces a perturbation in the radiation budget, the number of cloud condensation nuclei and the cloud micro-physics. Those effects are difficult to model at regional scale as several distinct models are usually involved. In this paper, the coupling of the CHIMERE chemistry-transport model with the WRF meteorological model using the OASIS3-MCT coupler is presented. WRF meteorological fields along with CHIMERE aerosol optical properties are exchanged through the coupler at a high frequency in order to model the aerosol direct and semidirect effects. The WRF-CHIMERE online model has a higher computational burden than both models ran separately in offline mode (up to 42 % higher). This is mainly due to some additional computations made within the models such as more frequent calls to meteorology treatment routines or calls to optical properties computations routines. On the other hand, the overall time required to perform the OASIS3-MCT exchanges is not significant compared to the total duration of the simulations. The impact of the coupling is evaluated on a case study over Europe, northern Africa, Middle East and western Asia during the Summer 2012, through comparisons of the offline and two online simulations (with and without the aerosol optical properties feedback) to observations of temperature, Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and surface PM10 (particulate matter with diameters lower than 10 µm) concentrations. Result shows that using the optical properties feedback induces a radiative forcing (average forcing of −4.8 W.m−2) which creates a perturbation in the average surface temperatures over desert areas (up to 2.6° locally) along with an increase of both AOD and PM10 concentrations.

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Aerosol–radiation interaction modelling using online coupling between the WRF 3.7.1 meteorological model and the CHIMERE 2016 chemistry-transport model, through the OASIS3-MCT coupler

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-10-927-2017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 927-944 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Régis Briant ◽

Paolo Tuccella ◽

Adrien Deroubaix ◽

Dmitry Khvorostyanov ◽

Laurent Menut ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Optical Properties ◽

Transport Model ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Total Duration ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Aerosol Optical Properties ◽

Chemistry Transport Model ◽

Meteorological Model ◽

Western Asia ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The presence of airborne aerosols affects the meteorology as it induces a perturbation in the radiation budget, the number of cloud condensation nuclei and the cloud micro-physics. Those effects are difficult to model at regional scale as regional chemistry-transport models are usually driven by a distinct meteorological model or data. In this paper, the coupling of the CHIMERE chemistry-transport model with the WRF meteorological model using the OASIS3-MCT coupler is presented. WRF meteorological fields along with CHIMERE aerosol optical properties are exchanged through the coupler at a high frequency in order to model the aerosol–radiation interactions. The WRF-CHIMERE online model has a higher computational burden than both models run separately in offline mode (up to 42 % higher). This is mainly due to some additional computations made within the models such as more frequent calls to meteorology treatment routines or calls to optical properties computation routines. On the other hand, the overall time required to perform the OASIS3-MCT exchanges is not significant compared to the total duration of the simulations. The impact of the coupling is evaluated on a case study over Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East and western Asia during the summer of 2012, through comparisons of the offline and two online simulations (with and without the aerosol optical properties feedback) to observations of temperature, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and surface PM10 (particulate matter with diameters lower than 10 µm) concentrations. The result shows that using the optical properties feedback induces a radiative forcing (average forcing of −4.8 W m−2) which creates a perturbation in the average surface temperatures over desert areas (up to 2.6° locally) along with an increase in both AOD and PM10 concentrations.

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Simulation of an Asian Dust Storm Event in May 2017

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos10030135 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 135 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Ping Song ◽

Jianfang Fei ◽

Changshun Li ◽

Xiaogang Huang

Keyword(s):

Size Distribution ◽

Dust Storm ◽

Source Region ◽

Dust Emission ◽

Northern China ◽

Dust Particles ◽

Storm Event ◽

Dust Size Distribution ◽

Dust Storm Event ◽

Local Dust

Dust particles in the atmosphere play an important role in air pollution, climate change, and biogeochemical cycles. Some of the dominant sources of dust in mid-latitude regions are in Asia. An intense dust storm engulfed Northern China at the beginning of May 2017, and PM10 mass concentrations of 1500–2000 μg m−3 were measured near the dust source region. We combined numerical simulations, air quality monitoring data, and satellite retrievals to investigate dust emission and transport during this event. We found that the event was closely related to cold front activity, characterized by increased wind speed, which increased dust emission. We improved the dust scheme using a local dust size distribution to better simulate the dust emission flux. We found that accurate parametrization of the dust size distribution was important to effectively simulate both dust emission and ambient particle concentration. We showed that using a local dust size distribution substantially improved the accuracy of the simulation, allowing both the spatial distribution of pollution caused by the dust storm and temporal variability in the pollution to be captured.

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Anatomy of a Severe Dust Storm in the Middle East: Impacts on Aerosol Optical Properties and Radiation Budget

Aerosol and Air Quality Research ◽

10.4209/aaqr.2019.04.0165 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 155-165

Author(s):

Christos Fountoukis ◽

Harshvardhan Harshvardhan ◽

Ivan Gladich ◽

Luis Ackermann ◽

Mohammed A. Ayoub

Keyword(s):

Optical Properties ◽

Middle East ◽

Dust Storm ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Aerosol Optical Properties ◽

Severe Dust Storm

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Dust Transport from Inland Australia and Its Impact on Air Quality and Health on the Eastern Coast of Australia during the February 2019 Dust Storm

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12020141 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 141

Author(s):

Emilie Aragnou ◽

Sean Watt ◽

Hiep Nguyen Duc ◽

Cassandra Cheeseman ◽

Matthew Riley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Dust Storm ◽

New South ◽

New South Wales ◽

The State ◽

Dust Storms ◽

Eastern Coast ◽

Storm Event ◽

South Wales ◽

Dust Storm Event

Dust storms originating from Central Australia and western New South Wales frequently cause high particle concentrations at many sites across New South Wales, both inland and along the coast. This study focussed on a dust storm event in February 2019 which affected air quality across the state as detected at many ambient monitoring stations in the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) air quality monitoring network. The WRF-Chem (Weather Research and Forecast Model—Chemistry) model is used to study the formation, dispersion and transport of dust across the state of New South Wales (NSW, Australia). Wildfires also happened in northern NSW at the same time of the dust storm in February 2019, and their emissions are taken into account in the WRF-Chem model by using Fire Inventory from NCAR (FINN) as emission input. The model performance is evaluated and is shown to predict fairly accurate the PM2.5 and PM10 concentration as compared to observation. The predicted PM2.5 concentration over New South Wales during 5 days from 11 to 15 February 2019 is then used to estimate the impact of the February 2019 dust storm event on three health endpoints, namely mortality, respiratory and cardiac disease hospitalisation rates. The results show that even though as the daily average of PM2.5 over some parts of the state, especially in western and north western NSW near the centre of the dust storm and wild fires, are very high (over 900 µg/m3), the population exposure is low due to the sparse population. Generally, the health impact is similar in order of magnitude to that caused by biomass burning events from wildfires or from hazardous reduction burnings (HRBs) near populous centres such as in Sydney in May 2016. One notable difference is the higher respiratory disease hospitalisation for this dust event (161) compared to the fire event (24).

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Aerosol optical properties affected by a strong dust storm over central and northern China

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences ◽

10.1007/s00376-009-9023-5 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 562-574 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Jinyuan Xin ◽

Wupeng Du ◽

Yuesi Wang ◽

Qingxian Gao ◽

Zhanqing Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Optical Properties ◽

Dust Storm ◽

Northern China ◽

Aerosol Optical Properties

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Measurements and modelling of particulate matter building ingress during a severe dust storm event

Building and Environment ◽

10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.106441 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 167 ◽

pp. 106441 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Christos D. Argyropoulos ◽

Hala Hassan ◽

Prashant Kumar ◽

Konstantinos E. Kakosimos

Keyword(s):

Particulate Matter ◽

Dust Storm ◽

Storm Event ◽

Dust Storm Event ◽

Severe Dust Storm

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Implementation of dust emission and chemistry into the Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling system and initial application to an Asian dust storm episode

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-12-10209-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (21) ◽

pp. 10209-10237 ◽

Cited By ~ 78

Author(s):

K. Wang ◽

Y. Zhang ◽

A. Nenes ◽

C. Fountoukis

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Dust Storm ◽

Dust Emission ◽

Forecast Model ◽

Heterogeneous Reactions ◽

Dust Particles ◽

Aerodynamic Diameter ◽

Dust Emissions ◽

New Model ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system version 4.7 is further developed to enhance its capability in simulating the photochemical cycles in the presence of dust particles. The new model treatments implemented in CMAQ v4.7 in this work include two online dust emission schemes (i.e., the Zender and Westphal schemes), nine dust-related heterogeneous reactions, an updated aerosol inorganic thermodynamic module ISORROPIA II with an explicit treatment of crustal species, and the interface between ISORROPIA II and the new dust treatments. The resulting improved CMAQ (referred to as CMAQ-Dust), offline-coupled with the Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF), is applied to the April 2001 dust storm episode over the trans-Pacific domain to examine the impact of new model treatments and understand associated uncertainties. WRF/CMAQ-Dust produces reasonable spatial distribution of dust emissions and captures the dust outbreak events, with the total dust emissions of ~111 and 223 Tg when using the Zender scheme with an erodible fraction of 0.5 and 1.0, respectively. The model system can reproduce well observed meteorological and chemical concentrations, with significant improvements for suspended particulate matter (PM), PM with aerodynamic diameter of 10 μm, and aerosol optical depth than the default CMAQ v4.7. The sensitivity studies show that the inclusion of crustal species reduces the concentration of PM with aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm (PM2.5) over polluted areas. The heterogeneous chemistry occurring on dust particles acts as a sink for some species (e.g., as a lower limit estimate, reducing O3 by up to 3.8 ppb (~9%) and SO2 by up to 0.3 ppb (~27%)) and as a source for some others (e.g., increasing fine-mode SO42− by up to 1.1 μg m−3 (~12%) and PM2.5 by up to 1.4 μg m−3 (~3%)) over the domain. The long-range transport of Asian pollutants can enhance the surface concentrations of gases by up to 3% and aerosol species by up to 20% in the Western US.

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