Models transport Saharan dust too low in the atmosphere: a comparison of the MetUM and CAMS forecasts  with observations

O'Sullivan, Debbie; Marenco, Franco; Ryder, Claire L.; Pradhan, Yaswant; Kipling, Zak; Johnson, Ben; Benedetti, Angela; Brooks, Melissa; McGill, Matthew; Yorks, John; Selmer, Patrick

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12955-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12955-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Dust aerosol measurements, modeling and multidisciplinary...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12955-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 21

Research article

|

05 Nov 2020

Research article |

| 05 Nov 2020

Models transport Saharan dust too low in the atmosphere: a comparison of the MetUM and CAMS forecasts with observations

Debbie O'Sullivan, Franco Marenco, Claire L. Ryder, Yaswant Pradhan, Zak Kipling, Ben Johnson, Angela Benedetti, Melissa Brooks, Matthew McGill, John Yorks, and Patrick Selmer

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Final revised paper (published on 05 Nov 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Apr 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'review', Anonymous Referee #2, 14 May 2020
RC2: 'REVIEW of "Models transport Saharan dust too low in the atmosphere compared to observations"', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Jun 2020
AC1: 'Response to reviewers', Franco Marenco, 15 Jul 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Franco Marenco on behalf of the Authors (15 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Aug 2020) by Nikos Hatzianastassiou

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Aug 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (04 Aug 2020)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (20 Aug 2020) by Nikos Hatzianastassiou

AR by Franco Marenco on behalf of the Authors (21 Aug 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (04 Sep 2020) by Nikos Hatzianastassiou

AR by Franco Marenco on behalf of the Authors (08 Sep 2020) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Mineral dust is an important component of the climate system, and we assess how well it is predicted by two operational models. We flew an aircraft in the dust layers in the eastern Atlantic, and we also make use of satellites. We show that models predict the dust layer too low and that it predicts the particles to be too small. We believe that these discrepancies may be overcome if models can be constrained with operational observations of dust vertical and size-resolved distribution.