Sub-basin scale dust source geomorphology detected using MODIS

The spatial and temporal variability of dust emissions from different surfaces in the Lake Eyre Basin, Australia is determined using MODIS data. For 2003–6 the sources of 529 dust plumes were classified: overall 37% of plumes originated in areas of aeolian deposits, 30% from alluvial deposits and floodplains and 29% from ephemeral lakes or playas. At this sub-basin scale, the relative importance of different dust source geomorphologies varied primarily in response to sediment supply and availability and was not related to aeolian transport capacity, suggesting the Lake Eyre Basin is a supply-limited system

Drivers of Australian dust: a case study of frontal winds and dust dynamics in the lower Lake Eyre Basin

The roles of pre-frontal, frontal and post-frontal winds as the primary wind systems for dust entrainment and transport in Australia are well established. While the relevance of each system has been observed across different wind erosion events in central Australia, the entrainment of dust by all three winds during the passage of an individual front has not been demonstrated until now. Synoptic information, satellite aerosol and imagery, meteorological and dust concentration data are presented for a single case study erosion event in the lower Lake Eyre Basin. This event demonstrates variable dust transport in three different directions from one of the southern Hemisphere's most significant source regions, and the changing nature of the active dust pathways during the passage of a frontal system. While only a single dust event is considered, the findings show the complexity of mineral aerosol emission and transport patterns even within an individual dust outbreak. For the lower Lake Eyre Basin, this appreciation of pathway behaviour is significant for better understanding the role of aeolian inputs from the dominant Australian source to surrounding marine systems. In a wider context, the findings exhibit the detailed insights into major dust source dynamics that can be obtained from high resolution spatial and particularly temporal data, as used in combination. This work highlights the importance of adequately resolved data for the accurate determination of dust entrainment and transport patterns of major dust sources

A visibility and total suspended dust relationship

This study reports findings on observed visibility reductions and associated concentrations of mineral dust from a detailed Australian case study. An understanding of the relationship between visibility and dust concentration is of considerable utility for wind erosion and aeolian dust research because it allows visibility data, which are available from thousands of weather observation stations worldwide, to be converted into dust concentrations. Until now, this application of visibility data for wind erosion/dust studies has been constrained by the scarcity of direct measurements of co-incident dust concentration and visibility measurements. While dust concentrations are available from high volume air samplers, these time-averaged data cannot be directly correlated with instantaneous visibility records from meteorological observations. This study presents a new method for deriving instantaneous values of total suspended dust from time averaged (filter-based) samples, through reference to high resolution PM10 data. The development and testing of the model is presented here as well as a discussion of the derived expression in relation to other visibility-dust concentration predictive curves. The current study is significant because the visibility-dust concentration relationship produced is based on visibility observations made 10-100km from the dust sources. This distance from source makes the derived relationship appropriate for a greater number of visibility recording stations than widely-used previous relationships based on observations made directly at eroding sources. Testing of the new formula performance against observed total suspended dust concentrations demonstrates that the model predicts dust concentration relatively well (r2=0.6) from visibility. When considered alongside previous studies, the new relationship fits into the continuum of visibility-dust concentration outcomes existing for increasing distance-from-source. This highlights the important influence that distance to source has on the visibility-dust concentration relationship

A clarion call for aeolian research to engage with global land degradation and climate change

This editorial represents a clarion call for the aeolian research community to provide increased scientific input to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and an invitation to apply for ISAR funding to organize a working group to support this engagement

Elucidating hidden and enduring weaknesses in dust emission modeling

Large-scale classical dust cycle models, developed more than two decades ago, assume for simplicity that the Earth's land surface is devoid of vegetation, reduce dust emission estimates using a vegetation cover complement, and calibrate estimates to observed atmospheric dust optical depth (DOD). Consequently, these models are expected to be valid for use with dust-climate projections in Earth System Models. We reveal little spatial relation between DOD frequency and satellite observed dust emission from point sources (DPS) and a difference of up to 2 orders of magnitude. We compared DPS data to an exemplar traditional dust emission model (TEM) and the albedo-based dust emission model (AEM) which represents aerodynamic roughness over space and time. Both models overestimated dust emission probability but showed strong spatial relations to DPS, suitable for calibration. Relative to the AEM calibrated to the DPS, the TEM overestimated large dust emission over vast vegetated areas and produced considerable false change in dust emission. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that calibrating dust cycle models to DOD has hidden for more than two decades, these TEM modeling weaknesses. The AEM overcomes these weaknesses without using masks or vegetation cover data. Considerable potential therefore exists for ESMs driven by prognostic albedo, to reveal new insights of aerosol effects on, and responses to, contemporary and environmental change projections.</p

Satellites reveal Earth's seasonally shifting dust emission sources

Establishing mineral dust impacts on Earth's systems requires numerical models of the dust cycle. Differences between dust optical depth (DOD) measurements and modelling the cycle of dust emission, atmospheric transport, and deposition of dust indicate large model uncertainty due partially to unrealistic model assumptions about dust emission frequency. Calibrating dust cycle models to DOD measurements typically in North Africa, are routinely used to reduce dust model magnitude. This calibration forces modelled dust emissions to match atmospheric DOD but may hide the correct magnitude and frequency of dust emission events at source, compensating biases in other modelled processes of the dust cycle. Therefore, it is essential to improve physically based dust emission modules. Here we use a global collation of satellite observations from previous studies of dust emission point source (DPS) dichotomous frequency data. We show that these DPS data have little-to-no relation with MODIS DOD frequency. We calibrate the albedo-based dust emission model using the frequency distribution of those DPS data. The global dust emission uncertainty constrained by DPS data (±3.8 kg m−2 y−1) provides a benchmark for dust emission model development. Our calibrated model results reveal much less global dust emission (29.1 ± 14.9 Tg y−1) than previous estimates, and show seasonally shifting dust emission predominance within and between hemispheres, as opposed to a persistent North African dust emission primacy widely interpreted from DOD measurements. Earth's largest dust emissions, proceed seasonally from East Asian deserts in boreal spring, to Middle Eastern and North African deserts in boreal summer and then Australian shrublands in boreal autumn-winter. This new analysis of dust emissions, from global sources of varying geochemical properties, have far-reaching implications for current and future dust-climate effects. For more reliable coupled representation of dust-climate projections, our findings suggest the need to re-evaluate dust cycle modelling and benefit from the albedo-based parameterisation.</p