Seasonal dynamics of threshold friction velocity and dust emission in Central Asia.

Unlabelled: An improved model representation of mineral dust cycle is critical to reducing the uncertainty of dust-induced environmental and climatic impact. Here we present a mesoscale model study of the seasonal dust activity in the semiarid drylands of Central Asia, focusing on the effects of wind speed, soil moisture, surface roughness heterogeneity, and vegetation phenology on the threshold friction velocity ( ) and dust emission during the dust season of 1 March to 31 October 2001. The dust model WRF-Chem-DuMo allows us to examine the uncertainties in seasonal dust emissions due to the selection of dust emission scheme and soil grain size distribution data.

Investigation into the use of satellite data in aiding characterization of particulate air quality in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area.

Poor air quality episodes occur often in metropolitan Atlanta, GA. The primary focus of this research is to assess the capability of satellites as a tool in characterizing air quality in Atlanta. Results indicate that intracity PM2.

Sensitivity metric approach for retrieval of aerosol properties from multiangular and multispectral polarized radiances.

Linearly polarized radiation is sensitive to the microphysical properties of aerosols, namely, to the particle-size distribution and refractive index. The discriminating power of polarized radiation increases strongly with the increasing range of scattering angles and the addition of multiple wavelengths. The polarization and directionality of the Earth's reflectances (POLDER) missions demonstrate that some aerosol properties can be successfully derived from spaceborne polarimetric, multiangular measurements at two visible wavelengths.