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    Regional effects of atmospheric aerosols on temperature: An evaluation of an ensemble of online coupled models
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2017) Baró, Rocío; Palacios-Peña, Laura; Baklanov, Alexander; Balzarini, Alessandra; Brunner, Dominik; Forkel, Renate; Hirtl, Marcus; Honzak, Luka; Pérez, Juan Luis; Pirovano, Guido; San José, Roberto; Schröder, Wolfram; Werhahn, Johannes; Wolke, Ralf; Žabkar, Rahela; Jiménez-Guerrero, Pedro
    The climate effect of atmospheric aerosols is associated with their influence on the radiative budget of the Earth due to the direct aerosol-radiation interactions (ARIs) and indirect effects, resulting from aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions (ACIs). Online coupled meteorology-chemistry models permit the description of these effects on the basis of simulated atmospheric aerosol concentrations, although there is still some uncertainty associated with the use of these models. Thus, the objective of this work is to assess whether the inclusion of atmospheric aerosol radiative feedbacks of an ensemble of online coupled models improves the simulation results for maximum, mean and minimum temperature at 2m over Europe. The evaluated models outputs originate from EuMetChem COST Action ES1004 simulations for Europe, differing in the inclusion (or omission) of ARI and ACI in the various models. The cases studies cover two important atmospheric aerosol episodes over Europe in the year 2010: (i) a heat wave event and a forest fire episode (July-August 2010) and (ii) a more humid episode including a Saharan desert dust outbreak in October 2010. The simulation results are evaluated against observational data from the E-OBS gridded database. The results indicate that, although there is only a slight improvement in the bias of the simulation results when including the radiative feedbacks, the spatiotemporal variability and correlation coefficients are improved for the cases under study when atmospheric aerosol radiative effects are included.
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    Doppler lidar studies of heat island effects on vertical mixing of aerosols during SAMUM-2
    (Milton Park : Taylor & Francis, 2017) Engelmann, Ronny; Ansmann, Albert; Horn, Stefan; Seifert, Patric; Althausen, Dietrich; Tesche, Matthias; Esselborn, Michael; Fruntke, Julia; Lieke, Kirsten; Freudenthaler, Volker; Gross, Silke
    A wind Doppler lidar was deployed next to three aerosol lidars during the SAMUM–2 campaign on the main island of Cape Verde. The effects of the differential heating of the island and the surrounding ocean and the orographic impact of the capital island Santiago and the small island on its luv side, Maio, are investigated. Horizontal and vertical winds were measured in the disturbed maritime boundary layer and compared to local radiosoundings. Lidar measurements from the research aircraft Falcon and a 3-D Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model were used in addition to study the heating effects on the scale of the islands. Indications are found that these effects can widely control the downward mixing from greater heights to the surface of African aerosols, mainly Saharan dust and biomass-burning smoke, which were detected in a complex layering over the Cape Verde region.
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    Numerical simulations of optical properties of Saharan dust aerosols with emphasis on lidar applications
    (Milton Park : Taylor & Francis, 2017) Wiegner, M.; Gasteiger, J.; Kandler, K.; Weinzierl, B.; Rasp, K.; Esselborn, M.; Freudenthaler, V.; Heese, B.; Toledano, C.; Tesche, M.; Althausen, D.
    In the framework of the Saharan Mineral Dust Experiment (SAMUM) for the first time the spectral dependence of particle linear depolarization ratios was measured by combining four lidar systems. In this paper these measurements are compared with results from scattering theory based on the T-matrix method. For this purpose, in situ measurements—size distribution, shape distribution and refractive index—were used as input parameters; particle shape was approximated by spheroids. A sensitivity study showed that lidar-related parameters—lidar ratio Sp and linear depolarization ratio δp—are very sensitive to changes of all parameters. The simulated values of the δp are in the range of 20% and 31% and thus in the range of the measurements. The spectral dependence is weak, so that it could not be resolved by the measurements. Calculated lidar ratios based on the measured microphysics and considering equivalent radii up to 7.5μm show a range of possible values between 29 and 50 sr at λ = 532 nm. Larger Sp might be possible if the real part of the refractive index is small and the imaginary part is large. A strict validation was however not possible as too many microphysical parameters influence Sp and δp that could not be measured with the required accuracy.
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    Evaluation of long-range transport and deposition of desert dust with the CTM MOCAGE
    (Milton Park : Taylor & Francis, 2017) Martet, M.; Peuch, V-H.; Laurent, B.; Marticorena, B.; Bergametti, G.
    Desert dust modelling and forecasting attract growing interest, due to the numerous impacts of dusts on climate, numerical weather prediction, health, ecosystems, transportation, as well as on many industrial activities. The validation of numerical tools is a very important activity in this context, and we present here an example of such an effort, combining in situ (horizontal visibility in SYNOP messages, IMPROVE database) and remote-sensing data (satellite imagery, AERONET aerosol optical thickness data). Interestingly, these measurements are available routinely, and not only in the context of dedicated measurements campaign; thus, they can be used in an operational context to monitor the performances of operational forecasting systems. MOCAGE is the chemistry-transport model of Météo-France, used operationally to forecast the three-dimensional transport of dusts and their deposition. Two very long-range transport episodes of dust have been studied: one case of Saharan dust transported to East America through Asia and Pacific observed in November 2004 and one case of Saharan dust transported from West Africa to Caribbean Islands in May 2007. Episodes of geographical extension had seldom been studied, and they provide a very selective reference to compare the modelled desert dusts with. The representation of dusts in MOCAGE appears to be realistic in these two very different cases. In turn, the model simulations are used to make the link between the complementary information provided by the different measurements tools, providing a fully consistent picture of the entire episodes. The evolution of the aerosol size distribution during the episodes has also been studied. With no surprise, our study underlines that deposition processes are very sensitive to the size of dust particles. If the atmospheric cycle, in terms of mass, is very much under the influence of larger particles (some micrometres and above), only the finer particles actually travel over thousands of kilometres. This illustrates the need for an accurate representation of size distributions for this aerosol component in numerical models and advocates for using a size-resolved (bin) approach as sinks, and particularly, deposition do not affect the emitted log-normal distributions symmetrically on both sides of the median diameter. Overall, the results presented in this study provide an evaluation of Météo-France operational dust forecasting system MOCAGE.