The AFWA Dust Emissions Scheme for the GOCART Aerosol Model in WRF-Chem
Abstract
Abstract. Airborne particles of mineral dust play a key role in Earth's climate system and affect human activities around the globe. The numerical weather modeling community has undertaken considerable efforts to accurately forecast these dust emissions. Here, for the first time in the literature, we thoroughly describe and document the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) dust emission scheme for the GOCART aerosol model within the Weather Research and Forecasting Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model and compare it to the other dust emission parameterizations available in WRF-Chem. The AFWA dust emission scheme addresses some shortcomings experienced by the earlier GOCART-WRF parameterization. Improved model physics are designed to better handle emission of fine dust particles by representing saltation bombardment. Model performance with the improved parameterization is evaluated against observations of dust emission in southwest Asia and compared to emissions predicted by the other parameterizations built into the WRF-Chem GOCART model. Results highlight the relative strengths of the available schemes, indicate the reasons for disagreement between the models, and demonstrate the need for improved soil source data.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Aug 07, 2018
- Source ID
- 10.5194/gmd-2018-169
Entities
People
- Chris Polashenski
- Glenn A. Creighton
- Jeffrey D. Cetola
- Sandra LeGrand
- Steven E. Peckham
- Theodore Letcher
Organizations
- Engineer Research and Development Center