The potential role of wind-blown dust emissions in PM pollution over non-arid areas: a modeling study over Central Europe

 

Wind-blown dust, emitted from the surface of the earth to the atmosphere as a result of the disintegration of material due to wind drag, can have a significant impact on the atmospheric concentration of PM levels, not only over arid, deserted areas, where their emission occurs, but due to long-range transport over distant areas too. Considering the increasing potential of longer dry periods between days with precipitation in a warming climate, one can expect however, that such emissions could be occasionally considerable also over non-arid areas, like Europe.

 

Here we provide a model based estimate of the regional impact of PM emissions from wind erosion (wind-blown dust - WBD) on urban and rural PM levels for a central European domain using a well-established wind-blown dust module (called ‘‘WBDUST’’) for the 2007-2016 period. As driving meteorological data, we used WRF simulations. WBD emissions were implemented into the CAMx chemistry transport model and we performed simulations with and without these emissions. Our results showed that both urban and rural PM levels are significantly increased if wind-blown dust is considered. The effects of the mineral content of WBD on ion chemistry and consequent effects on aerosol components (secondary (in-)organic aerosol) are analyzed too.