Identification

Title

Observations and cloud-resolving modeling of haboob dust storms over the Arabian Peninsula

Abstract

Strong mesoscale haboob dust storms in April 2007 in the central Arabian Peninsula were studied using the cloud-resolving Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF-Chem) modeling system and observations collected during an intensive atmospheric field campaign. The field campaign provided the valuable aircraft and Doppler weather radar measurements. Active convection persisted for several days during the study period. Dust generation was caused by both strong large-scale winds and locally produced density currents. Because of insufficient spatial resolution, the event was not resolved accurately by the conventional reanalyses. However, the WRF-Chem model did successfully capture the primary features of the convection, its location, and precipitation patterns. Although the amount of rainfall in the model was slightly underestimated compared to the satellite measurements, it was approximately double the rainfall in the reanalysis. The convection-associated dust outbreaks were simulated well, with the aerosols optical depth magnitude and the temporal variability being in good agreement with both the ground-based and satellite aerosol retrievals. The model captured the major dust generation patterns, transport pathways, and several of the largest haboobs identified from the satellite observations. About 25 Tg of dust was emitted in the Arabian Peninsula during the 10-day period. Approximately 40% of the locally deposited dust was subject to wet removal processes. During periods of high local dust production, the WRF-Chem model underestimated the PM10 mass concentration (associated mostly with dust particles larger than 3 mu m in diameter) by nearly a factor of 2. This suggests that the current dust parameterizations, which prescribe the size distribution of the emitted dust, underestimate the number of large particles that increases at strong wind conditions.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rn3btj

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

2018-11-16T00:00:00Z

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