Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
only at a few locations scattered around Australia. In this study we use
a land-surface scheme, a wind erosion scheme and a transport-deposition
scheme, all of which are coupled. In turn, this system is supported by a
comprehensive GIS database that is continuously updated with the latest
available land-surface data. The original system, developed and tested by
Shao and Leslie,
3
has been greatly extended by Lu and Shao,
4
and Shao
et al.
5
The system recently has been adapted for operational use by the
National Meteorological Centre of the Chinese Meteorology Agency to pro-
vide routine daily numerical forecasts of dust storm weather. This was the
first real-time application of a coupled numerical weather prediction-soil
erosion and system.
6
The main aims of our present study are as follows. First, we describe the
data and climatology. Second, we outline the integrated wind erosion mod-
eling system that provides predictions of dust concentration by simulating
dust particle entrainment, transport, and deposition. The integrated predic-
tion system used here is based on the HIRES numerical weather prediction
(NWP) model developed by the second author,
7
which is coupled with the
wind erosion model of Shao and Leslie,
3
Lu and Shao,
4
and Shao
et al.
8
The integrated system enables us to differentiate between the major mete-
orological factors that determine long-range dust transport. Two recent
dust storm events are studied in detail. They occurred in the same sea-
sonal period (spring-summer) and affected the same central-eastern areas
of Australia, which lie in the spring-summer dust storm group delineated
by Ekstrom
et al.
2
Third is a brief synoptic description of the case studies. The empha-
sis here is in determining the main synoptic differences of the events
rather than focusing on their detailed mesoscale meteorological develop-
ment and structure. The main numerical model outputs are the forecast
dust concentrations from the integrated wind modeling system. Fourth, the
results are presented and verified by comparing the predictions of the two
dust storms with both conventional meteorological data and satellite data.
Fifth the study and its findings are summarized, and research areas are
identified that require future work.
2. Data and Climatology
In the period 1995-2005 dust was reported on a total of 55 days by
Australian Bureau of Meteorology stations. There were 43 days on which
