A numerical study on dust devil dust transport: Implications to regional and global dust budget estimates

Abstract:

The amount of dust transported by dust devils (DDs) is subject to large uncertainties because the dust emission mechanisms in DDs are not yet well understood. Reducing this uncertainty is essential to estimate the contribution of DDs to the global dust budget and to study their impact on climate and the environment. Here, large-eddy simulation coupled with a dust emission scheme is used to investigate DD dust entrainment. DDs are identified from the simulations using various threshold values for pressure drop and vorticity in the DD center. The results show that DD dust lifting can be largely explained by convective turbulent dust emission. DD dust entrainment varies strongly between individual DDs even for similar atmospheric conditions, but the maximum emissions are determined by atmospheric stability. By relating DD emission and counts to Richardson number, we propose a new and simple method to estimate regional and global DD dust transport. The method is applied to results of regional model simulations for Australia, thus providing an estimate of the contribution of DDs to the Australian dust budget.