A review of coarse mineral dust in the Earth system

Adebiyi, Adeyemi A.; Kok, Jasper F.; Murray, Benjamin J.; Ryder, Claire L.; Stuut, Jan‐Berend; Kahn, Ralph A.; Knippertz, Peter; Formenti, Paola; Mahowald, N. M.; García-Pando, Carlos; Klose, Martina; Ansmann, Albert; Samset, B. H.; Ito, Akinori; Balkanski, Yves; Biagio, Claudia Di; Romanías, Manolis N.; Huang, Yue; Meng, Jian

doi:10.31223/x5qd36

Cited by 5 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 496 publications

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“…Absorption increases more strongly with particle size than scattering, and so the single-scattering albedo (SSA, the ratio of scattered radiation to total extinguished radiation) decreases with particle size. Indeed, submicron dust has an SSA close to 1, whereas supermicron dust absorbs a substantial fraction of the extinguished radiation, exhibiting SSAs of ~0.95 at D = 2 μm, ~0.80 at D = 10 μm and even lower for super-coarse dust 29,33 .…”

Section: Interactions With Radiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mineral dust aerosol impacts on global climate and climate change

Kok

Storelvmo

Karydis

et al. 2023

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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136

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Mineral dust aerosols impact the energy budget of Earth through interactions with radiation, clouds, atmospheric chemistry, the cryosphere and biogeochemistry. In this Review, we summarize these interactions and assess the resulting impacts of dust, and of changes in dust, on global climate and climate change. The total effect of dust interactions on the global energy budget of Earth -the dust effective radiative effect -is −0.2 ± 0.5 W m −2 (90% confidence interval), suggesting that dust net cools the climate. Global dust mass loading has increased 55 ± 30% since pre-industrial times, driven largely by increases in dust from Asia and North Africa, leading to changes in the energy budget of Earth. Indeed, this increase in dust has produced a global mean effective radiative forcing of −0.07 ± 0.18 W m −2 , somewhat counteracting greenhouse warming. Current climate models and climate assessments do not represent the historical increase in dust and thus omit the resulting radiative forcing, biasing climate change projections and assessments of climate sensitivity. Climate model simulations of future changes in dust diverge widely and are very uncertain. Further work is thus needed to constrain the radiative effects of dust on climate and to improve the representation of dust in climate models.

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Section: Interactions With Radiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mineral dust aerosol impacts on global climate and climate change

Kok

Storelvmo

Karydis

et al. 2023

Nat Rev Earth Environ

Self Cite

136

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Because absorption increases more strongly with particle size than scattering 34,35 , the singlescattering albedo (SSA; the ratio of scattered radiation to total extinguished radiation) decreases with particle size. Indeed, submicron dust has an SSA close to 1, whereas supermicron dust absorbs a substantial fraction of extinguished radiation, exhibiting SSAs of ~0.95 at D = 2 µm, ~0.80 at D = 10 µm, and even lower for super coarse dust 30,36 .…”

Section: Interactions With Radiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3) 6,32,46,[49][50][51][52] ; these estimates use realistic optical properties 45 and size distributions that are consistent with satellite constraints on the LW direct radiative effect 48,57 . The range reflects uncertainties in dust LW optical properties 45 , the height of dust plumes 58,59 , the dust size distribution and the contribution of super coarse dust 36,49,54 , and the effect of LW scattering by dust, which is neglected in climate models 32,33 and is sometimes accounted for using a simple correction factor 6,32,46,52 .…”

Section: Interactions With Radiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, past research likely underestimated the amount of coarse dust, which emits LW radiation more strongly than fine dust 49,56 . Because accounting for the observed abundance coarse dust particles could produce substantial LW radiative cooling of the atmosphere 32,36,124 , the understanding of the different pathways through which dust can semidirectly impact clouds remains incomplete.…”

Section: Dust Semi-direct Effects On Cloudsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, models likely greatly underestimate the atmospheric concentration of super coarse dust 49,55,56,124 , which warms by absorbing SW and LW radiation. This should be addressed by obtaining more measurements of emitted and transported dust that extend to the difficult-to-measure super coarse dust size range 29,36,54,55 , and by developing improved parameterizations of super coarse dust emission 220 and deposition and implementing those in climate models.…”

Section: Summary and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Mineral dust aerosol impacts on global climate and climate change

Kok¹,

Storelvmo²,

Karydis³

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mineral dust aerosols impact Earth’s energy budget through interactions with radiation, clouds, atmospheric chemistry, the cryosphere and biogeochemistry. In this review, we summarize these interactions and assess the resulting impacts of dust, and of changes in dust, on global climate and climate change. We find that the total effect of these interactions on Earth’s global energy budget—the dust effective radiative effect—is -0.2 ± 0.5 Wm-2 (90% confidence interval). Compared to pre-industrial times, global dust mass loading is 56 ± 29% higher in the modern climate, leading to changes in the Earth’s energy budget. Indeed, this increase in dust has produced a global mean effective radiative forcing of -0.07 ± 0.18 Wm-2. Current climate models and climate assessments do not represent the historical increase in dust and thus omit the resulting radiative forcing, biasing climate change projections and assessments of climate sensitivity. Climate model simulations of future changes in dust diverge widely and are very uncertain. Further work is thus needed to constrain the radiative effects of dust on climate and to improve the representation of dust in climate models.

show abstract

Fine and Coarse Dust Effects on Radiative Forcing, Mass Deposition, and Solar Devices Over the Middle East

Mostamandi,

Ukhov,

Engelbrecht

et al. 2023

JGR Atmospheres

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In desert regions like the Middle East, dust has a profound impact on the environment, climate, air quality, and solar devices. The size of dust particles determines the extent of these effects. Dust deposition (DD) measurements show that coarse dust particles with geometric radius r > 10 μm comprise most of the deposited mass. Still, these particles are not represented in the current models that are tuned to fit the observed aerosol optical depth (AOD). As a result, the existing models and reanalysis products underestimate DD and dust emission (DE) almost 3 times. This is the first study to constrain the dust simulations by both AOD and DD measurements to quantify the effect of coarse and fine dust using the WRF‐Chem model. We found that, on average, coarse dust contributes less than 10% to dust shortwave radiative forcing (RF) at the surface but comprises more than 70% of DE. Annual mean net RF over the Arabian Peninsula and regional seas locally reaches −25 W m−2. Airborne fine dust particles with radii r < 3 μm are mainly responsible for the significant dimming (5%–10%) of solar radiation, cooling the surface, and hampering solar energy production. However, dust mass deposition is primarily linked to coarse particles, decreasing the efficiency of photovoltaic panels by 2%–5% per day. Therefore, incorporating coarse dust in model simulations and data assimilation would improve the overall description of the dust mass balance and its impact on environmental systems and solar devices.

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A review of coarse mineral dust in the Earth system

Cited by 5 publications

References 496 publications

Mineral dust aerosol impacts on global climate and climate change

Mineral dust aerosol impacts on global climate and climate change

Mineral dust aerosol impacts on global climate and climate change

Fine and Coarse Dust Effects on Radiative Forcing, Mass Deposition, and Solar Devices Over the Middle East

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