Simulation of a severe dust storm with different dust emission schemes

• Published in: E3S web of conferences Vol. 99; p. 2013
• Main Authors: Hossein Hamzeh, Nasim, Karami, Sara, Ranjbar, Abbas
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Les Ulis EDP Sciences 01-01-2019
• Subjects: Computer simulation; Dust; Dust storms; Emission analysis; Emissions; Satellite imagery; Storms; Middle East; Iran
• ISSN: 2267-1242; 2555-0403; 2267-1242
• DOI: 10.1051/e3sconf/20199902013

Dust storms are natural hazards and affect many countries of the world especially the Middle East. So in order to prevent dustdamages, to a certain extent, dust prediction and simulation should be deemed vital. For this purpose, regional-scale simulations are compared in this study, by means of WRF-Chem using five emission schemes. Based on the model outputs, satellite imagery, and backtrajectory analysis, it is shown that the dust particles transfer from Iran into Iraq. Furthermore, over Ilam province (south-west of Iran), the comparison of the surface concentration from different model outputs shows the results depend on the considered dust emission scheme. In general, it can be stated that choosing different dust emission schemes has a significant effect on the output of the model. Shao schemes have high sensitivity to the land surface data and the low resolution of this data in the Middle East causes some errors in dust flux simulation in the region. AFWA and GOCART schemes show more accurate results in the dust transport in the whole area compared to Shao schemes in the presented case study.