Mass deposition fluxes of Saharan mineral dust to the tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean: an intercomparison of methods.

Autor: Niedermeier, N., Held, A., Müller, T., Heinold, B., Schepanski, K., Tegen, I., Kandler, K., Ebert, M., Weinbruch, S., Read, K., Lee, J., Fomba, K. W., Müller, K., Herrmann, H., Wiedensohler, A.
Zdroj: Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics Discussions; 2012, Vol. 12 Issue 12, p33025-33081, 57p
Abstrakt: The aim of this study is to determine the mass deposition flux of mineral dust to the tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO) on the island Sao Vicente for January 2009. Five different methods were applied to estimate the deposition flux, using different meteorological and microphysical measurements, remote sensing, and regional dust transport simulations. The set of observations comprises micrometeorological measurements with an ultra-sonic anemometer and profile measurements using 2-D anemometers at two different heights, and microphysical measurements of the size-resolved mass concentrations of mineral dust. In addition, the total mass concentration of mineral dust was derived from absorption photometer observations and passive sampling. The regional dust model COSMO-MUSCAT was used for simulations of dust emission and transport, including dry and wet deposition processes. The four observation-based methods yield a monthly average deposition flux of mineral dust of 12-29ng m-2s-1. The simulation results come close to the upper range of the measurements with an average value of 47 ng m-2s-1. It is shown, that the mass deposition flux of mineral dust obtained by the combination of micrometeorological (ultra-sonic anemometer) and microphysical measurements (particle mass size distribution of mineral dust) is within 5% to modeled mass deposition fluxes when the mineral dust is relatively homogenously distributed over the investigated area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index