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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • Saharan dust transport
  • North Atlantic sea surface temperature
  • tropical cyclone development

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry
  • Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability
  • Atmospheric Processes: Tropical meteorology
  • Atmospheric Processes: Ocean/atmosphere interactions
  • Atmospheric Processes: Clouds and aerosols

Abstract

Long-term variability in Saharan dust transport and its link to North Atlantic sea surface temperature

Sun Wong

Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

Andrew E. Dessler

Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

Natalie M. Mahowald

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Peter R. Colarco

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Arlindo da Silva

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

An understanding of the atmospheric distribution of Saharan dust is crucial for understanding many Earth-system processes. We demonstrate here a model simulation indicating that the August-September dust amount in the Tropical Atlantic is linked to the basin-wide North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST). The increasing SSTs from 1979 to 2005 are associated with a strengthening cyclonic anomaly at 700 hPa in the tropical East Atlantic, reducing Saharan dust outflow into the Tropical Atlantic at latitudes between 10°–20°N. A decreasing dust amount over the same region is also observed by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. Given the previously observed anti-correlation between dust and tropical cyclone (TC) activity, the long-term variation of North Atlantic SST can then directly influence TC activity by changing a TC's maximum potential intensity and indirectly by modulating the transport of the dust-laden Saharan Air Layer.

Received 11 October 2007; accepted 25 February 2008; published 8 April 2008.

Citation: Wong, S., A. E. Dessler, N. M. Mahowald, P. R. Colarco, and A. da Silva (2008), Long-term variability in Saharan dust transport and its link to North Atlantic sea surface temperature, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L07812, doi:10.1029/2007GL032297.

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