AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Regionally Specific Saharan Dust Transport
Carmen Lamancusa, KRISTINA WAGSTROM, University of Connecticut
Abstract Number: 584 Working Group: Remote and Regional Atmospheric Aerosols
Abstract With the Saharan desert contributing more to atmospheric dust at the global level than any other source, it is important to understand and quantify how dust from different sub-sections of the region travel globally. Most studies of Saharan dust only examine the full Saharan region rather than treating all the sub-regions. In this study, we investigate twelve sub-regions in the Saharan Desert and determine how transport of dust from each regions varies when compared to its neighboring regions. We also investigate overall trends, particularly when comparing northern to southern regions and eastern to western regions.
We use the GEOS-Chem 3D global atmospheric chemistry model to the global transport of dust emitted from each Saharan sub-region. Comparing the dust transport from each region allows us to isolate differences in expected impacts from dust suspended in each regions. In the regions examined, there was more latitudinal transport in the northern regions than the southern regions. Additionally, we investigated seasonal variation and found that dust emitted between April and June experienced longer transport distances than dust emitted during other months. Furthermore we discuss how this data compares to satellite observations of sub-Saharan dust transport and the insights garnered through this comparison.