- 1King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia (yasser.abualnaja@kaust.edu.sa)
- 2Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.
- 3Institute of Oceanography, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Anavyssos, Greece.
This study examines the impact of dust on surface and radiative fluxes, as well as sea surface temperature (SST), over the Red Sea during the dust season (March to August) from 1980 to 2024 using reanalysis and satellite datasets. We first identfied the extreme dust days (EDDs) across the Arabian Peninsula using MERRA-2 reanalysis data, employing the mean and two-sigma standardized deviation method. A total of 1,083 EDDs were detected during the study period, with 394, 103, and 39 days exclusively affecting the southern Red Sea, northern Red Sea, and the entire Red Sea, respectively.
We analysed the key variables, including dust aerosol optical depth, wind patterns, surface fluxes (latent and sensible heat), radiative fluxes (longwave and shortwave), and SST anomalies for the Red Sea and its sub-regions during EDDs. Positive anomalies in dust aerosol optical depth were observed over all three regions during EDDs, and further identified the dust transport pathways based on wind analyses. The results show significant radiative impacts, including increased longwave radiation (+16 W/m²) and reduced shortwave radiation (-30 W/m²) with suppressed latent heat flux (-50 W/m²) and sensible heat flux (-10 W/m²), indicating substantial ocean heat loss through surface evaporation during EDDs.
The SST anomalies also revealed a notable cooling across the Red Sea, with the northern region cooling up to -1.4°C, and the southern region exhibited milder cooling ranging between -0.3°C and +0.2°C. The average cooling across the entire Red Sea is approximately -0.8°C reflects the combined effects of stronger cooling in the northern and moderate cooling in the southern Red Sea region during EDDs. These findings highlight the critical role of dust in modulating surface energy budgets and SST variability in the Red Sea under three different EDD scenarios.
Key words: Arabian Peninsula, Extreme Dust Days, The Red Sea, Suraface-Radiative Fluxes, and Sea Surface Temperature.
How to cite: Nukapothula, S., Dasari, H. P., Kunchala, R. K., Papadopoulos, V. P., Hoteit, I., and Abualnaja, Y.: Impacts of Dust on Surface-Radiative Fluxes, and Sea Surface Temperatures in the Red Sea, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5418, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5418, 2025.
