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Abstract:
To improve the aeolian dust budget calculations with the global ECHAM/MESSy atmospheric chemistry-climate model (EMAC) we have implemented new input data and updates of the emission scheme.
The data set comprises landcover classification, vegetation, clay fraction and topography. It is based on up-to-date observations, which is crucial to account for the rapid changes of deserts and semi-arid regions in recent decades. The new Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) based landcover and vegetation data is time dependent, and the effect of long-term trends and variability of the relevant parameters is therefore considered by the emission scheme. All input data has a spatial resolution of at least 0.1° compared to 1° in the previous version, equipping the model for high resolution simulations.
We validate the updates by comparing results for the aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm wavelength from a one year simulation at T106 (about 1.1°) resolution with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and MODIS observations, and results for 10 μm dust AOD (DAOD) with Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) retrievals. The update significantly improves agreement with the observations and is therefore recommended to be used in future simulations.
