Articles | Volume 24, issue 21
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024
Research article
 | 
30 Oct 2024
Research article |  | 30 Oct 2024

Long-range transport of coarse mineral dust: an evaluation of the Met Office Unified Model against aircraft observations

Natalie G. Ratcliffe, Claire L. Ryder, Nicolas Bellouin, Stephanie Woodward, Anthony Jones, Ben Johnson, Lisa-Maria Wieland, Maximilian Dollner, Josef Gasteiger, and Bernadett Weinzierl

Related authors

Saharan and Arabian dust optical properties registered by sun photometry during A-LIFE field experiment in Cyprus
David Mateos, Carlos Toledano, Abel Calle, Roberto Román, Marcos Herreras-Giralda, Ramiro González, Sara Herrero-Anta, Daniel González-Fernández, Celia Herrero-del Barrio, Argyro Nisantzi, Silke Gross, Victoria E. Cachorro, Ángel M. de Frutos, and Bernadett Weinzierl
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3577,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3577, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Evaluation of UKESM aerosol size and composition using ATom measurements indicates missing marine aerosol formation mechanisms
Xu-Cheng He, Nathan Luke Abraham, Han Ding, Maria R. Russo, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Yao Ge, Xuemei Wang, Anthony C. Jones, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Benjamin Nault, Agnieszka Kupc, Donald Blake, Jose L. Jimenez, Christina J. Williamson, Kenneth S. Carslaw, James Weber, Alexander T. Archibald, and Hamish Gordon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3700,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3700, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Representing extreme fires and their radiative effects in a global climate model via variable scaling of emissions: Case study of the 2020 California wildfires
Elizabeth Quaye, Ben T. Johnson, James M. Haywood, Guido R. van der Werf, Roland Vernooij, Stephen A. Sitch, and Tom Eames
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3936,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3936, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Pollution affects Arabian and Saharan dust optical properties in the eastern Mediterranean
Marilena Teri, Josef Gasteiger, Katharina Heimerl, Maximilian Dollner, Manuel Schöberl, Petra Seibert, Anne Tipka, Thomas Müller, Sudharaj Aryasree, Konrad Kandler, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 6633–6662, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6633-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6633-2025, 2025
Short summary
The Met Office Unified Model Global Atmosphere 8.0 and JULES Global Land 9.0 configurations
Martin Richard Willett, Melissa Brooks, Andrew Bushell, Paul Earnshaw, Samantha Smith, Lorenzo Tomassini, Martin Best, Ian Boutle, Jennifer Brooke, John M. Edwards, Kalli Furtado, Catherine Hardacre, Andrew J. Hartley, Alan Hewitt, Ben Johnson, Adrian Lock, Andy Malcolm, Jane Mulcahy, Eike Müller, Heather Rumbold, Gabriel G. Rooney, Alistair Sellar, Masashi Ujiie, Annelize van Niekerk, Andy Wiltshire, and Michael Whitall
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1829,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1829, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
Short summary

Cited articles

Adebiyi, A., Kok, J. F., Murray, B. J., Ryder, C. L., Stuut, J.-B. W., Kahn, R. A., Knippertz, P., Formenti, P., Mahowald, N. M., García-Pando, C. P., Klose, M., Ansmann, A., Samset, B. H., Ito, A., Balkanski, Y., Di Biagio, C., Romanias, M. N., Huang, Y., and Meng, J.: A review of coarse mineral dust in the Earth system, Aeolian Res., 60, 100849, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeolia.2022.100849, 2023. a, b, c
Adebiyi, A. A. and Kok, J. F.: Climate models miss most of the coarse dust in the atmosphere, Science Advances, 6, eaaz9507, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz9507, 2020. a, b, c, d
Ansmann, A., Rittmeister, F., Engelmann, R., Basart, S., Jorba, O., Spyrou, C., Remy, S., Skupin, A., Baars, H., Seifert, P., Senf, F., and Kanitz, T.: Profiling of Saharan dust from the Caribbean to western Africa – Part 2: Shipborne lidar measurements versus forecasts, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 14987–15006, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-14987-2017, 2017. a, b, c
Bagnold, R. A.: The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes, Metheun, New York, ISBN 978-94-009-5682-7, 1941. a
Baker, A. R., Jickells, T. D., Witt, M., and Linge, K. L.: Trends in the solubility of iron, aluminium, manganese and phosphorus in aerosol collected over the Atlantic Ocean, Mar. Chem., 98, 43–58, https://doi.org/10.1016/J.MARCHEM.2005.06.004, 2006. a
Download
Short summary
Large mineral dust particles are more abundant in the atmosphere than expected and have different impacts on the environment than small particles, which are better represented in climate models. We use aircraft measurements to assess a climate model representation of large-dust transport. We find that the model underestimates the amount of large dust at all stages of transport and that fast removal of the large particles increases this underestimation with distance from the Sahara.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint