Assessing the WRF-chem model in simulating the Saharan dust concentration over the Mediterranean region

Emmanouil Flaounas (1) , Vasso Kotroni (1) , K. Lagouvardos (1) , Cyrille Flamant (2)

1 NOA - National Observatory of Athens
2 TROPO - LATMOS

Mineral dust constitutes one of the main air pollutants in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, dust is known to affect the atmospheric dynamics and thermodynamics, having thus a strong impact on convection and rainfall. The African desert of Sahara constitutes the worldwide main source of dust. However, the quantification of the dust export from the African continent towards the Mediterranean is delicate issue. Indeed, monitoring atmospheric dust concentration is a scientific challenge, mainly due to the uncertainties linked with the remoteness of observations (satellites), as also due to the absence of a sufficiently dense surface observational network over the North African coasts. Consequently the scientific analysis in this issue resides strongly to modeling of atmospheric physics and chemistry. Currently, one of the main challenges is to best simulate the dust uptakes and transport since their source over the African continent. To this end, we evaluate an ensemble of simulations performed with the WRF-chem atmospheric/chemistry model to properly represent dust concentrations during the period of June 2011. This period offers a unique opportunity to compare model outputs with airborne observations, taken during the FENNEC project over the Saharan desert. Furthermore, we compare the model outputs with a variety of surface measurements and satellite observations. This work aims at determining the most efficient parameterization scheme for dust forecasting purposes.

Domaines: Climatologie

Emmanouil Flaounas, Vasso Kotroni, K. Lagouvardos, Cyrille Flamant. Assessing the WRF-chem model in simulating the Saharan dust concentration over the Mediterranean region. 9th HyMex Workshop, Sep 2015, Mykonos, Greece. 2015. ⟨insu-01206959⟩