Impact of sea-surface dust radiative forcing on the oceanic primary production: A 1D modeling approach applied to the West African coastal waters

Abstract

[1] The impact of the dust sea-surface forcing (DSSF) on the oceanic Primary Production (PP) is investigated here by using 1D modelling approach coupling an atmospheric radiative transfer model and a simple PP model. Simulations reveal that dust are able to induce a significant decrease of PP due to the attenuation of light by about 15–25% for dust optical depth (DOD) larger than 0.6–0.7 (at 550 nm). For DOD lower than ∼0.2–0.3, the influence of dust on PP is weak (∼5%). In addition to DOD, the important role played by dust single scattering albedo (DSSA) is also shown. Realistic applications over the Senegal coast are studied using SeaWiFS and AERONET observations. The analysis showed that PP could be reduced by about 15–20% during the spring period. This study highlights that dust/light interactions need to be parameterized in coupled ocean-atmosphere models used to estimate PP at regional scales.