Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission

Abstract The summertime Sahara and Sahel are the world’s largest source of airborne mineral dust. Cold-pool outflows from moist convection (‘haboobs’) are a dominant source of summertime uplift but are essentially missing in global models, raising major questions on the reliability of climate projec...

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Autores principales:	Luis Garcia-Carreras, John H. Marsham, Rachel A. Stratton, Simon Tucker
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/4b35e00f98b74cf694395d14c06bf6c1
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:4b35e00f98b74cf694395d14c06bf6c1
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:4b35e00f98b74cf694395d14c06bf6c12021-12-02T18:14:08ZCapturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission10.1038/s41612-021-00201-x2397-3722https://doaj.org/article/4b35e00f98b74cf694395d14c06bf6c12021-09-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-021-00201-xhttps://doaj.org/toc/2397-3722Abstract The summertime Sahara and Sahel are the world’s largest source of airborne mineral dust. Cold-pool outflows from moist convection (‘haboobs’) are a dominant source of summertime uplift but are essentially missing in global models, raising major questions on the reliability of climate projections of dust and dust impacts. Here we use convection-permitting simulations of pan-African climate change, which explicitly capture haboobs, to investigate whether this key limitation of global models affects projections. We show that explicit convection is key to capturing the observed summertime maximum of dust-generating winds, which is missed with parameterised convection. Despite this, future climate changes in dust-generating winds are more sensitive to the effects of explicit convection on the wider meteorology than they are to the haboobs themselves, with model differences in the change in dust-generating winds reaching 60% of current values. The results therefore show the importance of improving convection in climate models for dust projections.Luis Garcia-CarrerasJohn H. MarshamRachel A. StrattonSimon TuckerNature PortfolioarticleEnvironmental sciencesGE1-350Meteorology. ClimatologyQC851-999ENnpj Climate and Atmospheric Science, Vol 4, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999
spellingShingle	Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 Luis Garcia-Carreras John H. Marsham Rachel A. Stratton Simon Tucker Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission
description	Abstract The summertime Sahara and Sahel are the world’s largest source of airborne mineral dust. Cold-pool outflows from moist convection (‘haboobs’) are a dominant source of summertime uplift but are essentially missing in global models, raising major questions on the reliability of climate projections of dust and dust impacts. Here we use convection-permitting simulations of pan-African climate change, which explicitly capture haboobs, to investigate whether this key limitation of global models affects projections. We show that explicit convection is key to capturing the observed summertime maximum of dust-generating winds, which is missed with parameterised convection. Despite this, future climate changes in dust-generating winds are more sensitive to the effects of explicit convection on the wider meteorology than they are to the haboobs themselves, with model differences in the change in dust-generating winds reaching 60% of current values. The results therefore show the importance of improving convection in climate models for dust projections.
format	article
author	Luis Garcia-Carreras John H. Marsham Rachel A. Stratton Simon Tucker
author_facet	Luis Garcia-Carreras John H. Marsham Rachel A. Stratton Simon Tucker
author_sort	Luis Garcia-Carreras
title	Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission
title_short	Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission
title_full	Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission
title_fullStr	Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission
title_full_unstemmed	Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission
title_sort	capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in african dust emission
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/4b35e00f98b74cf694395d14c06bf6c1
work_keys_str_mv	AT luisgarciacarreras capturingconvectionessentialforprojectionsofclimatechangeinafricandustemission AT johnhmarsham capturingconvectionessentialforprojectionsofclimatechangeinafricandustemission AT rachelastratton capturingconvectionessentialforprojectionsofclimatechangeinafricandustemission AT simontucker capturingconvectionessentialforprojectionsofclimatechangeinafricandustemission
_version_	1718378450159403008

Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission

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