RT Journal Article
T1 Intercomparison of WRF-chem aerosol schemes during a dry Saharan dust outbreak in Southern Iberian Peninsula
A1 Pino-Carmona, Miguel
A1 Ruiz-Arias, José Antonio
A1 Fernández-Carvelo, Sol
A1 Bravo-Aranda, Juan Antonio
A1 Alados-Arboledas, Lucas
K1 Aerosoles
AB The Iberian Peninsula (IP), where this study is conducted, has experienced an increase of the frequency and intensity of Saharan aerosol dust outbreaks over the latest decades, which may have an impact on its regional climate. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF-chem) has been used worldwide to simulate dust outbreaks and can support the analysis of such potential impacts. However, it includes multiple alternative aerosol parameterization choices that have not been conveniently evaluated in the study region yet. Here, three of the most popular WRF-chem aerosol parameterization schemes, namely, the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART), the Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC) and the Modal Aerosol Dynamics Model for Europe (MADE) schemes, are inter-compared during a strong and dry dust outbreak on July 2021 in southern IP. The results show that the three schemes predict qualitatively similar dust intrusion patterns that are consistent with ground observations and have inter-model dust loading differences smaller than 4%. However, their average dust size distributions differ notably. While GOCART is reasonably consistent with observations, MOSAIC underpredicts the amount of dust particles with sub-micron diameters and overpredicts that of large particles and MADE does the opposite. This is found to have a strong detrimental impact on the prediction performance of dust optical properties in MOSAIC and MADE, which is related, at least partially, with issues in the required inter-sectional redistribution of dust parameters during the dust emission and calculation of optical properties. Overall, GOCART generally appears a better choice for strong and dry dust outbreak events in southern IP. It remains to be evaluated during wet dust outbreaks, which is a work underway.
PB Elsevier
YR 2024
FD 2024-12-15
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/37139
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/37139
LA eng
NO Pino-Carmona, M., Ruiz-Arias, J. A., Fernández-Carvelo, S., Bravo-Aranda, J. A., & Alados-Arboledas, L. (2024). Intercomparison of WRF-chem aerosol schemes during a dry Saharan dust outbreak in Southern Iberian Peninsula. Atmospheric Environment, 339, 120872.
NO Office of Knowledge, Research and University of Junta de Andalucia through the project AEROPRE (P-18-RT-3820).European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program through projects ACTRIS.IMP (grant agreement No 871115) and ATMO_ACCESS (grant agreement No 101008004).Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through projects ELPIS PID2020-120015RB-I00 MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ACTRIS-España RED2022-134824-E.University of Granada through Singular Laboratory program (AGORA, LS2022-1) and Unidad Científica de Excelencia program (Sistema Tierra, UCE-PP2017-2).Computer resources, technical expertise and assistance by the SCBI (Supercomputing and Bioinformatics) center of the University of Malaga.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 21 ene 2026