HR: 09:15h
AN: A11D-06    [PDF]
TI: A less dusty future?
AU: * Mahowald, N M
EM: mahowald@ucar.edu
AF: National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80302 United States
AU: * Mahowald, N M
EM: mahowald@ucar.edu
AF: Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 United States
AU: * Mahowald, N M
EM: mahowald@ucar.edu
AF: Institute for Computational Earth System Science, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 United States
AU: Luo, C
EM: chaoluo@bren.ucsb.edu
AF: National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80302 United States
AU: Luo, C
EM: chaoluo@bren.ucsb.edu
AF: Institute for Computational Earth System Science, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 United States
AB: Atmospheric desert dust is potentially highly sensitive to changes in climate, carbon dioxide and human land use. In this study we use 6 different scenarios of the processes responsible for changes in source areas and explore changes in desert dust loading in pre-industrial and future climates, although all the scenario results are likely to be sensitive to the climate model simulations used for this study. Comparisons between model results and available pre-industrial ice cores are not able to constrain which scenario is most likely to be correct. Simulations suggest that future dust may be 20 to 60 percent lower than current dust loadings. The anthropogenic portion of the current dust loading may be as large as 60 percent, or humans may have caused a 24 percent decrease in desert dust, depending on the relative importance of land use, carbon dioxide and human induced climate change. These results suggest there may be a high sensitivity of `natural aerosols' to human intervention, which has enormous implications for climate and biogeochemistry in the future.
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801)
DE: 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting