Quantifying the dust direct radiative effect in the southwestern United States: findings from multiyear measurements

Kuwano, Alexandra; Evan, Amato T.; Walkowiak, Blake; Frouin, Robert

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9843-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9843-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9843-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 17

Research article

|

06 Sep 2024

Research article |

| 06 Sep 2024

Quantifying the dust direct radiative effect in the southwestern United States: findings from multiyear measurements

Alexandra Kuwano, Amato T. Evan, Blake Walkowiak, and Robert Frouin

Data sets

Aerosol, Radiation, Meteorological, and Satellite Measurements 2019-2022 Alexandra Kuwano et al. https://doi.org/10.6075/J00Z73G8

Measurements from Radiometers Alexandra Kuwano et al. https://doi.org/10.6075/J04Q7V6M

JRA-55: Japanese 55-year Reanalysis, Daily 3-Hourly and 6-Hourly Data University Corporation for Atmospheric Research https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds628.0/dataaccess/

AERONET: Aerosol Optical Depth (V3)-Solar I. Slutsker https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Air Quality Data (PST) Query Tool California Air Resources Board https://www.arb.ca.gov/aqmis2/aqdselect.php

Solar Position Calculator M. Mikofski https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/58405-solar-position-calculator

masasaito/TAMUdust2020: TAMUdust2020 Database M. Saito et al. https://github.com/masasaito/TAMUdust2020

RRTM (Stand-Alone Model)/RRTMG (GCM Applications) Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. http://rtweb.aer.com/rrtm_frame.html

Short summary

The dust direct radiative effect is highly uncertain. Here we used new measurements collected over 3 years and during dust storms at a field site in a desert region in the southwestern United States to estimate the regional dust direct radiative effect. We also used novel soil mineralogy retrieved from an airborne spectrometer to estimate this parameter with model output. We find that, in this region, dust has a minimal net cooling effect on this region's climate.