The Impact of Dust Storms on Aerosol Optical Depth and Radiative Forcing

Abstract

Iraq is one of the most affected countries in Middle East concerning of dust storms events. They have several environmental effects on the climate. This study summarized the simulation of severe dust storm using Regional Climate Model version 4 (RegCM4) and then examine its application to estimate the total amount of dust (dust load), Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and dust radiative forcing. As a result, RegCM4 reproduced the selected case of severe dust storm occurred in 03 May 2005. The spatial distribution of values of dust load, AOD and radiative forcing are achieved at every three hours. During the dust storms AOD reaches their maximum values. It shows that the highest value of average concentration for the dust in this case is larger than 200 mg / m2 .