Identification

Title

Influence of mesoscale dynamics and turbulence on fine dust transport in Owens Valley

Abstract

Fine dust particles emitted from Owens (dry) Lake in California documented during the Terrain-Induced Rotor Experiment (T-REX) of 2006 have been examined using surface observations and a mesoscale aerosol model. Air quality stations around Owens (dry) Lake observed dramatic temporal and spatial variations of surface winds and dust particulate concentration. The hourly particulate concentration averaged over a 2-month period exhibits a strong diurnal variation with a primary maximum in the afternoon, coincident with a wind speed maximum. The strongest dust event documented during the 2-month-long period, with maximum hourly and daily average particulate concentrations of 7000 and 1000 mu g m(-3), respectively, is further examined using output from a high-resolution mesoscale aerosol model simulation. In the morning, with the valley air decoupled from the prevailing westerlies (i.e., cross valley) above the mountaintop, fine particulates are blown off the dry lake bed by moderate up-valley winds and transported along the valley toward northwest. The simulated strong westerlies reach the western part of the valley in the afternoon and more fine dust is scoured off Owens (dry) Lake than in the morning. Assisted by strong turbulence and wave-induced vertical motion in the valley, the westerlies can transport a substantial fraction of the particulate mass across the Inyo Mountains into Death Valley National Park.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7tx3fw2

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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Text

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title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Temporal reference

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date type

publication

effective date

2011-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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None

Responsible organisations

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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

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Metadata point of contact