(2008), Long-term variability in Saharan dust transport and its link

• Main Authors: Sun Wong, Andrew E. Dessler, Natalie M. Mahowald, Peter R. Colarco, Arlindo Da Silva, E. Dessler, N. M. Mahowald, P. R. Colarco, A. Da Silva
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: L07812; doi; 10.1029/2007GL032297; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.570.6845; http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/wong2008.pdf

[1] 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 10–20N. 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