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

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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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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
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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.
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