A Comparative Study of Mesoscale Modeling of Smoke and Dust Direct Radiative Effects over Northern Sub-Saharan African Region.

This study aims to investigate the radiative effects of smoke and dust aerosols and of the underlying surface in the Northern Sub-Saharan African (NSSA) region using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). We performed a yearlong (from September 2009 to September 2010) WRF-Chem simulation using hourly emissions from the Fire Energetics and Emissions Research (FEER) emission dataset derived by multiplying emission coefficients based on aerosol and fire observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments aboard Terra and Aqua with fire radiative energy (FRE) measurements from the geostationary Meteosat Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI). The geographic distribution and vertical profiles of simulated dust and smoke aerosols were evaluated with MODIS true color images and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar data with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIPSO) total attenuated backscatter, aerosol extinction coefficient and depolarization data. We found that simulated aerosol vertical concentration profiles are consistent with the above CALIPSO data. Surface albedo and columnar aerosol optical depth (AOD) sensitivity to smoke and dust simulations are performed with WRF-Chem. The simulated surface albedo and AOD were compared with MODIS albedo product (MODIS43) and AOD measurements from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). The modeled smoke/dust clear-sky and all-sky radiative impacts were analyzed in this study and reveal interesting results that will be discussed.