Analysis of a severe dust storm and its impact on air quality conditions using WRF-Chem modeling, satellite imagery, and ground observations

Abstract

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of an extreme dust event recorded in the Arabian Peninsula and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between 31 March and 3 April 2015. Simulations of the dust event with the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with the Chemistry module (WRF-Chem) were analyzed and verified using MSG-SEVIRI imagery and aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the recent 1-km Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm for MODIS Terra/Aqua. Data from the National Centers for Atmospheric Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) and the upper-air radiosonde observations were used to understand the synoptic of the event. In addition, the impact of the event on atmospheric and air quality conditions is investigated. The Air Quality Index (AQI) was calculated prior, during, and after the event to assess the degradation of air quality conditions. Simulated temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and surface radiation were compared to observations at six monitoring stations in the UAE giving R 2 values of 0.84, 0.63, 0.60, and 0.84, respectively. From 1 to 2 April 2015, both observations and simulations showed an average drop in temperature from 33 to 26°C and radiance reduction from about 950 to 520 Wm −2. The AOD modeled by WRF-Chem showed a good correlation with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) measurements in the UAE with R 2 of 0.83. The AQI over the UAE reached hazardous levels during the peak of the dust event before rapidly decreasing to moderate-good air quality levels. This work is the first attempt to demonstrate the potential of using WRF-Chem to estimate AQI over the UAE along with two satellite products (MODIS-MAIAC and MSG-SEVIRI) for dust detection and tracking.

Impact of COVID-19 lockdown upon the air quality and surface urban heat island intensity over the United Arab Emirates

“…5 ). This may be due to the fact that rainfall throughout these months (AMJ) is scarce, and the gusty winds ensure that dust storms become frequent ( Barbulescu and Nazzal, 2020 ; Karagulian et al, 2019 ). Furthermore, according to Al Otaibi et al (2019) , AOD typically rises over the gulf nations in hot summer months.…”

Tropospheric Dust and Associated Atmospheric Circulations over the Mediterranean Region with Focus on Romania’s Territory

“…Mineral dust particles also have an indirect effect on the atmospheric humidity, leading to uncertainties in the studies of climate systems and models at global and regional levels [6,7]. According to some authors [8], large quantities of mineral dust particles in the atmosphere induce an important radiative impact on the Earth's surface associated with a sharp decrease of the temperature on the surface [9].…”

Assessment of natural and anthropogenic aerosol air pollution in the Middle East using MERRA-2, CAMS data assimilation products,and high-resolution WRF-Chem model simulations

“…to 77 µg/m 3 with an overall average of 61.25 µg/m 3 exceeding the US-EPA standards (Al-Taani et al, 2019), and over the last 14 years PM 2.5 concentrations showed a positive trend. In Karagulian et al (2019), the WRF-Chem v3.8.1 was used to simulate a dust storm over the UAE on 2 April 2015. The simulated PM 10 concentration peaked at 1500 µg/m 3 .…”