 |
| Titel |
Estimation of Dust Emission from the Western Coastal Plains of Arabian Peninsula |
| VerfasserIn |
Anatolii Anisimov, Georgiy Stenchikov |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
|
| Medientyp |
Artikel
|
| Sprache |
en
|
| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250130175
|
| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-10390.pdf |
|
|
|
|
|
| Zusammenfassung |
| This study is aimed at quantifying local-scale dust emission from the coastal areas of western
Arabian Peninsula. The dust emitted from these areas is frequently deposited directly to the
Red Sea, acting as an important component of the nutrient balance of marine ecosystems.
Most chemicals including iron, phosphorus, and nitrogen are introduced to the Red Sea with
airborne dust. This process is especially significant for the oligotrophic northern Red Sea,
where nutrients from the Indian Ocean cannot reach and the nutrient supply from land river
discharge is negligible.
The dust deposition to the Red Sea associated with major dust storms was recently
estimated to be about 6 Tg/yr, but this estimate does not account for local, small-scale dust
outbreaks occurring during fair weather conditions or moderate winds. The seasonality and
the magnitude of this nutrient supply are largely unknown. In the present study, we quantify
dust emissions using the fine-scale off-line version-4 of the Community Land Model (CLM4)
with the high-resolution datasets as input parameters. We examine the model sensitivity to the
spatial resolution of input land cover and vegetation data, and compare the results with
weather station observations and reanalysis to choose the best model configuration. The
model results are shown to be in reasonable agreement with station visibility measurements
and the frequency of dust event reports. To improve the spatial characteristics of dust
emission, we apply two state-of-the-art dust source functions. We found that the source
function based on measurements from SEVIRI satellite substantially improves the
simulation results, being in good agreement with both reanalysis data and station
measurements.
We identify the major dust source hot-spot areas over the coastal plain and analyze the
seasonal and diurnal variability of dust emissions. The annual dust generation from the
145000 km2 coastal area reaches 6 Tg/yr. Roughly half of emitted dust could be deposited to
the Red Sea, which is comparable to the deposition from major dust events. A substantial part
of this dust is generated in the northern coastal plain and is predominantly deposited to the
northern Red Sea, providing essentially the sole supply of nutrients to the oceanic
ecosystems. |
|
|
|
|
|
|