P15 Dust forecasts over the Arabian Peninsula using WRF/Chem and driven by high-resolution climate reanalysis data

Zhang, Yongxin, Yubao Liu, Wanli Wu, and Paul Kucera, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Dust storms are severe environmental problems over the Arabian Peninsula and can be quite damaging to human health and safety. Establishing and improving modeling capabilities of sand and dust storms over the region can substantially contribute to early warnings and risk reduction.

Dust forecasts over the Arabian Peninsula could be quite challenging due to the lack of conventional observations. On the other hand, the recent and high-resolution climate reanalysis data, with the assimilation of both conventional and nonconventional observations that are available, could be quite useful to study the weather process impact on dust initiation and transport, and examine feasibility in forecasting these processes.

In this study, WRF/Chem is used to simulate a dust storm case of March 2009 over the Arabian Peninsula driven by several high-resolution climate reanalysis datasets. The datasets include the NCEP CFSR (Climate Forecast System Reanalysis), ECMWF ERA-Interim, NASA MERRA (Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications), and NCEP FNL (Final Analysis) data. The research goal is to understand the ability and limitations of WRF/Chem in providing dust forecasts guidance to the region and to study the impact of weather simulation uncertainties (by using different climate reanalysis data) on regional dust prediction. The model results and sensitivity analysis will be presented at the meeting.