Reduced surface fine dust under droughts over the southeastern United States during summertime: observations and CMIP6 model simulations

Li, Wei; Wang, Yuxuan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7843-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7843-2022

© Author(s) 2022. 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-22-7843-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 12

Research article

|

17 Jun 2022

Research article |

| 17 Jun 2022

Reduced surface fine dust under droughts over the southeastern United States during summertime: observations and CMIP6 model simulations

Wei Li and Yuxuan Wang

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7843-2022-supplement

Data sets

CALIPSO Lidar Level 3 Tropospheric Aerosol Profiles NASA https://doi.org/10.5067/CALIOP/CALIPSO/CAL_LID_L3_Tropospheric_APro_CloudFree-Standard-V4-20

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1979 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

Observed and simulated dust data W. Li https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XCLAOT

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Short summary

Fine dust is an important component of PM_2.5 and can be largely modulated by droughts. In contrast to the increase in dust in the southwest USA where major dust sources are located, dust in the southeast USA is affected more by long-range transport from Africa and decreases under droughts. Both the transport and emissions of African dust are weakened when the southeast USA is under droughts, which reveals how regional-scale droughts can influence aerosol abundance through long-range transport.