Abstract
Northern China experienced a severe sand and dust storm (SDS) on 14/15 March 2021. It was difficult to simulate this severe SDS event accurately. This study compared the performances of three dust-emission schemes on simulating PM10 concentration during this SDS event by implementing three vertical dust flux parameterizations in the Comprehensive Air-Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) model. Additionally, a statistical gusty-wind model was implemented in the dust-emission scheme, and it was used to quantify the gusty-wind contribution to dust emissions and peak PM10 concentration. As a result, the LS scheme (Lu and Shao 1999) produced the minimum errors for peak PM10 concentrations, the MB scheme (Marticorena and Bergametti 1995) underestimated the PM10 concentrations by 70–90%, and the KOK scheme (Kok et al. 2014) overestimated PM10 concentrations by 10–50% in most areas. The gusty-wind model could reasonably reproduce the probability density function of 2-min wind speeds. There were 5–40% more dust-emission flux and 5–40% more peak PM10 concentrations generated by the gusty wind than the hourly wind in the dust-source regions. The increase of peak PM10 concentration caused by gusty wind in the non-dust-source regions was higher than in the dust-source regions, with 10–50%. Implementing the gusty-wind model could help improve the LS scheme’s performance in simulating PM10 concentrations of this severe SDS event. More work is still needed to investigate the reliability of the gusty-wind model and LS scheme on various SDS events.
Highlights
Sand and dust storms (SDSs) are extremely hazardous weather systems characterized by low visibility, strong wind, and high particle-matter concentration that frequently occur in arid and semi-arid regions such as East Asia [1,2,3]
Studies have been performed to improve the model performance on the simulation of sand and dust storm (SDS) events
Implementing the gusty-wind model could lead to a 5–40% increase in the peak PM10 concentration in the dust-source area and a 10–50% increase in East–Central China
Summary
Sand and dust storms (SDSs) are extremely hazardous weather systems characterized by low visibility, strong wind, and high particle-matter concentration that frequently occur in arid and semi-arid regions such as East Asia [1,2,3]. Studies about gustywind parameterization [21,22,23] and the probability density function of gusty wind [24] made it possible to consider the gusty wind in dust-emission schemes. Yin et al [26] analyzed the climatological causes of this SDS event They concluded that the strong gusty wind in the dust-source area corresponded to the increases in the PM10 concentration in Beijing, China. This study implements three vertical dust-flux parameterizations in the Comprehensive Air-Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) to investigate their performances on this severe SDS event. A gusty-wind prediction model was developed to simulate the probability density function of gusty-wind speed and implemented in the dust-emission scheme to quantify the role of gusty wind in this SDS event. Atmospheric rivers intertwined strongly with exceptional SDS events [28,29]; we analyzed the possible influence of atmospheric rivers on this exceptional SDS event
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