Identification

Title

Dust emission response to climate in Southern Africa

Abstract

The processes which act in mineral dust source regions and factors which contribute to interannual variability within dust plumes emanating from them are poorly understood. In this case study, we focus on processes modulating emissions of atmospheric mineral aerosols from a large ephemeral lake. We focus on one key ephemeral lake dust source in southern Africa, the Makgadikgadi Pans of Botswana. A range of satellite [for example, Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)] and climate data (from meteorological stations and reanalysis data sources) are extracted and compared, highlighting initial problems (for example, data quality, calibration, record length) associated with long-term (10-20 years) monitoring of dust with regional sources in this and other dryland regions. Nevertheless, comparisons of satellite-retrieved inundation, mineral aerosols, vegetation abundance, and climate data for the 1980-2000 period suggest that desert dust loadings are intermittently influenced by the extent and frequency of lake inundation, sediment inflows, and surface wind speed variability. In addition, a significant proportion of the observed variability in the dust and hydrological cycle of this source could also be attributed to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies. Both are known to have an important role in modulating rainfall variability in southern Africa.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76h4hpv

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2007-05-06T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact