Estimations of indirect and direct anthropogenic dust emission at the global scale

Chen, Siyu; Jiang, Nanxuan; Huang, Jianping; Zang, Zhipeng; Guan, Xiaodan; Ma, Xiaojun; Luo, Yuan; Li, Jiming; Zhang, Xiaorui; Zhang, Yanting

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.11.063

Cited by 32 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…A cursory perusal of Google Earth shows very extensive areas of intense agricultural activity in the region underlying the plume in northern Argentina and extending through Paraguay and into southern Brazil. In contrast, global model studies of anthropogenic dust linked to land use (Chen et al, 2018, 2019; Ginoux et al, 2012) do not show any substantial emissions in the region of the MERRA‐2 plume. It is possible that these MERRA‐2 sources are an artifact of the response of the source algorithm to the land use classification.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Characterizing and Quantifying African Dust Transport and Deposition to South America: Implications for the Phosphorus Budget in the Amazon Basin

Prospero

Barkley

Gaston

et al. 2020

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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Soils in the Amazon Basin are deficient in phosphorus, essential to soil fertility. Previous studies suggested that African mineral dust deposited to Amazonian soils served as an important source of phosphorus that enhances soil fertility. These studies lacked the quantitative measurements essential to validate estimates. Here we present daily measurements of mineral dust and PM 10 carried in the trade winds at Cayenne, French Guiana, during 2002-2017. MERRA-2 model dust concentrations showed excellent agreement with measurements over this period. Consequently, we used MERRA-2 to estimate temporal and spatial deposition rates to Amazonia. Our annual deposition rate, 8-10 Tg dust, is substantially lower than previous estimates. Deposition rates are greatest over the northern and northeastern regions of South America. In contrast, rates are low in central Amazonia. Our results raise questions about the impact of African dust on soil fertility in Amazonia. However, African aerosol transport carries other aerosol species that could play a role in soil fertility, including biomass-burning products known to contain substantial concentrations of phosphorus. Our study highlights the need for more measurements of aerosol and precipitation chemistry over wider expanses of South America in order to better characterize aerosol chemical and physical properties, to identify aerosol sources, and to constrain model estimates. We show that over 2002-2017 dust transport to South America was negatively correlated to rainfall over the Sahel in North Africa. Long-term monitoring is needed to capture changes in transport from Africa that might occur as a result of climate change. Plain Language Summary The Amazon Basin plays a major role in climate by removing huge quantities of carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere and storing the carbon in vegetation. This removal partially offsets the impact of CO 2 emitted by humans and the consequent rate of global warming. There is a concern about decreasing soil fertility in the Amazon Basin because of the loss of phosphorus, an essential plant nutrient, due to intense tropical weathering and biomass burning. Previous work suggested that large quantities of dust are transported from Africa to South America every year and deposited to the Amazon. Dust contains phosphorus and other nutrients that could mitigate soil losses and increase Amazonian soil fertility. However, estimates of the amount of dust carried to the Amazon are uncertain because of the lack of aerosol measurements. Our multiyear measurements of African dust in the trade winds in French Guiana, coupled with a chemical transport model, suggest that significant quantities of dust reach the heart of the Amazon Basin although the amounts are substantially less than had been previously estimated. This raises questions about the long-term status of soil fertility in the Amazon and the future impact on the carbon cycle. We also find that the quantities of dust transported to South America are inversely linked to rainfall in North Afri...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Characterizing and Quantifying African Dust Transport and Deposition to South America: Implications for the Phosphorus Budget in the Amazon Basin

Prospero

Barkley

Gaston

et al. 2020

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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“…Aerosols play an important role in affecting the Earth's radiation balance and climate system (Haywood and Boucher, 2000;Feingold et al, 2005;Lohmann and Feichter, 2005;Huang et al, 2008aHuang et al, , 2008bHuang et al, , 2015Liu et al, 2011Liu et al, , 2013Wang et al, 2015;Li et al, 2016;Chen et al, 2019). Moreover, aerosols can impact cloud microphysics by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) or ice nuclei (IN) through so-called aerosol indirect effects, which have been extensively studied (Twomey, 1977;Albrecht, 1989;Ramaswamy et al, 2001;Huang et al, 2007;Yuan et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2014;Chen et al, 2018aChen et al, , 2018b. Although some research progress has been made regarding the indirect effects of aerosols, considerable uncertainties are still present in the current interpretation of the Earth's energy budget and the prediction of the future climate (IPCC, 2013;Huang et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Tibetan Plateau (TP), which is the tallest highland in the world, exerts profound effects on regional and global climate change through mechanical and thermal dynamical effects (Wu et al, 2007;Boos and Kuang, 2010;Hua et al, 2018). However, the TP is surrounded by several important aerosol sources (Jia et al, 2018(Jia et al, , 2019Zhu et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2019c), and the uplift and transport of aerosols to the TP may newly threaten the ability of the TP to influence the regional climate (Huang et al, 2008a(Huang et al, , 2008bLau et al, 2008;Engling et al, 2011;Jia et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2015;Li et al, 2016;Chen et al, 2018aChen et al, , 2018bShang et al, 2018). Nevertheless, few studies have focused on the aerosol indirect effects over the TP.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inconsistent aerosol indirect effects on water clouds and ice clouds over the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Luo

et al. 2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Recently, satellites have observed that dust events are occurring more frequently over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), which implies a new issue of aerosols influencing cloud properties and presents a new challenge in research on the role of the TP in climate change. In this study, combining satellite observations with Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model simulations, the inconsistent aerosol indirect effects on the properties of water clouds and ice clouds over the TP are compared and quantified. Analyses of satellite observations show that, compared with water clouds, ice clouds are observed more frequently and are more significantly correlated with aerosols over the TP. Correspondingly, the aerosol effect on the radiative forcing of ice clouds is more significant than that on the forcing of water clouds, in which the aerosol indirect effect is dominated by the effect on the shortwave radiative forcing of ice clouds. Both observations and CMIP5 model simulation results show that, due to the variation of aerosols, changes in the ice cloud radiative forcing cover most of the TP, while changes in the water cloud radiative forcing mainly appear over the southern edge of the TP. The CMIP5 simulation results suggest that the aerosol indirect effect on the total radiative forcing of water clouds over the TP is −0.34 (±0.03) W⋅m−2, while that on the forcing of ice clouds is −0.73 (±0.03) W⋅m−2. Overall, both the model simulations and satellite results show that the indirect effect of aerosols on ice clouds is more pronounced than that on water clouds.

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“…The dust loading in South Asia is dominated by the long‐range transport in the free troposphere from remote deserts (e.g., the Middle East and Sahara) especially for spring and early summer (Begum et al., 2011). Another reason is that there is an increasing trend of dust emitted due to rapid urbanization with intense traffic, infrastructure construction, heavy building, and road construction (i.e., anthropogenic dust; S. Chen et al., 2018; S. Chen et al., 2019; Ginoux et al., 2012).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decreasing Dust Over the Middle East Partly Caused by Irrigation Expansion

Xia

Wang

2022

Earth's Future

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The importance of the effects of anthropogenic activities on modulating the global dust cycle has been increasingly recognized. Over the Middle East, we find in observations that there has been a significant decrease in dust optical depth from 2007 to 2019 during which global irrigated areas especially in the Middle East and South Asia have rapidly expanded. Whether irrigation expansion contributes to the decrease of dust in the Middle East is investigated based on observations/reanalyses and global climate model simulations with and without irrigation. Results show that irrigation over the northeast Middle East and Pakistan supplements water to the soil. By increasing local evaporation and moisture advection, irrigation enhances precipitation over the whole Middle East and the northwest Indian subcontinent. As a result, dust wet deposition by precipitation is elevated. Owing to irrigation‐induced land surface cooling, surface wind speed decreases as the planetary boundary layer becomes stable. Along with increased soil moisture, reduced surface wind speed suppresses local dust emissions. Enhanced dust wet deposition and suppressed dust emissions cause atmospheric dust reduction over the Middle East. Vegetation greening in the Middle East as the climate warms has no contribution because there is no obvious trend found in observations.

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Estimations of indirect and direct anthropogenic dust emission at the global scale

Cited by 32 publications

References 63 publications

Characterizing and Quantifying African Dust Transport and Deposition to South America: Implications for the Phosphorus Budget in the Amazon Basin

Characterizing and Quantifying African Dust Transport and Deposition to South America: Implications for the Phosphorus Budget in the Amazon Basin

Inconsistent aerosol indirect effects on water clouds and ice clouds over the Tibetan Plateau

Decreasing Dust Over the Middle East Partly Caused by Irrigation Expansion

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