Mineral dust aerosols over the Sahara: Meteorological controls on emission and transport and implications for modeling

Knippertz, Peter; Todd, Martin C.

doi:10.1029/2011rg000362

Cited by 406

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 146 of the 146 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Mineral dust aerosols over the Sahara: Meteorological controls on emission and transport and implications for modeling

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Knippertz, Peter, Todd, Martin C.·2012·Reviews of Geophysics

DOI 10.1029/2011rg000362

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Abstract

Atmospheric mineral dust has recently become an important research field in Earth system science because of its impacts on radiation, clouds, atmospheric dynamics and chemistry, air quality, and biogeochemical cycles. Studying and modeling dust emission and transport over the world's largest source region, the Sahara, is particularly challenging because of the complex meteorology and a very sparse observational network. Recent advances in satellite retrievals together with ground‐ and aircraft‐based field campaigns have fostered our understanding of the spatiotemporal variability of the dust aerosol and its atmospheric drivers. We now have a more complete picture of the key processes in the atmosphere associated with dust emission. These cover a range of scales from (1) synoptic scale cyclones in the northern sector of the Sahara, harmattan surges and African easterly waves, through (2) low‐level jets and cold pools of mesoscale convective systems (particularly over the Sahel), to (3) microscale dust devils and dusty plumes, each with its own pronounced diurnal and seasonal characteristics. This paper summarizes recent progress on monitoring and analyzing the dust distribution over the Sahara and discusses implications for numerical modeling. Among the key challenges for the future are a better quantification of the relative importance of single processes and a more realistic representation of the effects of the smaller‐scale meteorological features in dust models. In particular, moist convection has been recognized as a major limitation to our understanding because of the inability of satellites to observe dust under clouds and the difficulties of numerical models to capture convective organization.

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Authors: Knippertz, P., & Todd, M. C.
Venue: Reviews of Geophysics
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published: 2012-02-14
Volume: 50
Issue: 1
ISSN: 0096-1043 (ISSN-L)
8755-1209
1944-9208
DOI: 10.1029/2011rg000362
OpenAlex: W2067486888
Cited by: 406
References: 146
FWCI: 15.54
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: bronze
Licence: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)

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Mineral dust aerosols over the Sahara: Meteorological controls on emission and transport and implications for modeling

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