Dust

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

AeroCom wiki discussion entry

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See also summary of AeroCom/Recommendations

Enter the DISCUSSION HERE


Thursday December 14h --- Michael Schulz ---

Dear dust colleagues,

Having met Nathalie and Paul in Paris during the GEIA conference I am motivated again for suggesting joint dust work. I think there is a good chance to get a better 'dust analysis' going on the basis of the AeroCom data. But we probably need to do/propose some additional experiments.

During the AeroCom workshop we have said that a working group should be installed and Paul kindly agreed to lead it (for now). As suggested by the meeting we intend to maintain wiki pages for joint discussion and I have set up one with basic initial thoughts:

http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Dust

However - Nathalie and me thought that some few telephone conferences would be really helpful to get things going. I have no real experience but can only propose skype. Any better suggestion would be perfect!! I just tested: we could also download images on the wiki page prior/during a telecon. Not so complicated. I suggest you use the wiki page to enter propositions for a first teleconference.

Right now I am not sure we will manage to start before Christmas. But some reaction to this proposal would be nice,

have nice winter days! Michael

AeroCom working group DUST

Participants for analysis

Ginoux, Balkanski, Mahowald, Schulz, Winker, Mann, Takemura, Miller?, Tegen?, Zender?,

NEXT Telephone conference: 10th of January 17 UTC (= 18 Paris time, 12 ET, 10 Boulder Time?)

Goals

Investigate the possible impact of anthropogenic dust sources
Compare dust simulations to multiple observational datasets
Recommend properties for dust size and refractive index

Processes and possible Diagnostics

Dust erosion - wind frequency and speed ; threshold velocities; effective source fluxes; source size distribution

Dust settling - dry removal velocities per size bin;

Wet Dust removal - wet scavenging efficients; vertical distribution; wet deposition of Calcium, dust;

Scattering and absorption - refractive index; AOD; size; absorption

Short-term actions/experiments

Organise regular teleconferences

Prepare a natural and an anthropogenic dust source for a joint experiment
Follow up on ideas from earlier Mahowald publications.

Assemble observations
(Visibility, IDDI, MISR, MODIS, MODIS Deepblue, Deposition, Aeronet, Aeroce, Calipso, Asian dust observations, Ca concentrations in rain)
Retrieve from AeroCom database dust variables and wind speed fields

Eventually participate in dust conference in Italy

Data to look at

The AeroCom database has unanalysed data on dust deposition and wind speed statistics in some models.

Aeronet dust dominated sites

Refractive index and size in literature

Dust, Fe and Ca concentrations in air and precipitation

Satellite AOD in dust dominated regions (MISR, MODIS, TOMS, DEEPBLUE-MODIS, CALIPSO)

Fine mode AOD in dust regions?

Sink repartitioning among AeroCom models