Mineral Aerosol Variability in the Anthropocene

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。该项目旨在提高我们对沙漠灰尘的空间和时间变化以及沙漠对气候和人类扰动的反应的理解。它将解决以下两个问题i）什么是空间和时间变化的分布沙漠尘埃气溶胶，与不确定性估计？（二）过去130年来，沙漠尘埃气溶胶发生了怎样的变化，未来又将发生怎样的变化？研究者将：i）改进国家大气研究中心社区气候系统模型（CCSM）中的沙漠沙尘模拟，包括矿物学建模能力，ii）汇编现有的矿物气溶胶观测数据，包括现场元素气溶胶数据、能见度数据和沙漠沙尘地区的遥感数据，iii）使用统计方法将联合收割机建模研究与观测相结合，以提供对来源不确定性范围的估计，分布和沉积与当前气候的现有观测相一致，iv）提供更多观测最有价值的位置和数据类型的模型估计，以及v）提供工业化前到当前和未来矿物气溶胶的改进模型估计，以及由此产生的辐射强迫和气候响应该项目的更广泛的影响包括：i）改进CCSM（一个社区模式）中的气溶胶配方; ii）改进我们对沙漠尘埃气溶胶的理解; ㈢培训研究生和本科生，㈣在会议、讲习班和参考文献中广泛传播成果和调查结果。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Desert dust aerosols impact the climate and biogeochemistry. This project seeks to improve our understanding of the spatial and temporal variability of desert dust and desert response to climate and human perturbation. It will address the following two questions i) What is the spatial and temporally varying distribution of desert dust aerosols, with uncertainty estimates? ii) How have desert dust aerosols changed over the past 130 years and how will they change in the future? The investigator will: i) improve the simulation of desert dust in the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Climate System Model (CCSM), including the capability of modeling mineralogy, ii) compile available observations of mineral aerosol, including in situ elemental aerosol data, visibility data and remote sensing data over desert dust regions, iii) combine modeling study with observations using statistical approaches to provide an estimate of the range of uncertainty in sources, distributions and deposition that is consistent with available observations for the current climate, iv) provide model estimates for the locations and type of data where more observations would be most valuable, and v) provide improved model estimates of preindustrial to current and future mineral aerosols, as well as the resulting radiative forcing and climate response (with uncertainties).The broader impacts of this project include i) improvements in the aerosol formulation in the CCSM, a community model; ii) improvements in our understanding of desert dust aerosols; iii) the training of graduate and undergraduate students, iv) wide dissemination of results and findings in conferences, workshops and refereed literature.