Submitted as: development and technical paper |
| 19 May 2014
Status: this preprint was under review for the journal GMD but the revision was not accepted.
Homogeneized modeling of mineral dust emissions over Europe and Africa using the CHIMERE model
R. Briant,L. Menut,G. Siour,and C. Prigent
Abstract. In the region including Africa and Europe, the main part of mineral dust emissions is observed in Africa. The particles are thus transported towards Europe and constitute a non-negligible part of the surface aerosols measured and controlled in the framework of the European air quality legislation. The modelling of these African dust emissions fluxes and transport is widely studied and complex parameterizations are already used in regional to global model for this Sahara-Sahel region. In a lesser extent, mineral dust emissions occur locally in Europe, mainly over agricultural areas. Their modelling is generally poorly done or just ignored. But in some cases, this contribution may be important and may impact the European air quality budget. In this study, we propose an homogeneized calculations of mineral dust fluxes for Europe and Africa. For that, we extended the CHIMERE dust production model (DPM) by using new soil and surface datasets, and the global aeolian roughness length dataset provided by GARLAP from microwave and visible satellite observations. This DPM is detailed along with academic tests case results and simulation on a real case results.
Received: 28 Apr 2014 – Discussion started: 19 May 2014
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