Coarse mineral dust (diameter, ≥5 μm) is an important component of the Earth system that affects clouds, ocean ecosystems, and climate. Despite their significance, climate models consistently underestimate the amount of coarse dust in the atmosphere when compared to measurements. Here, we estimate the global load of coarse dust using a framework that leverages dozens of measurements of atmospheric dust size distributions. We find that the atmosphere contains 17 Tg of coarse dust, which is four times more than current climate models simulate. Our findings indicate that models deposit coarse dust out of the atmosphere too quickly. Accounting for this missing coarse dust adds a warming effect of 0.15 W·m^-2 and increases the likelihood that dust net warms the climate system. We conclude that to properly represent the impact of dust on the Earth system, climate models must include an accurate treatment of coarse dust in the atmosphere.

Desert dust accounts for a large fraction of shortwave radiation absorbed by aerosols, which adds to the climate warming produced by greenhouse gases. However, it remains uncertain exactly how much shortwave radiation dust absorbs. Here, we leverage in-situ measurements of dust single-scattering albedo to constrain absorption at mid-visible wavelength by North African dust, which accounts for approximately half of the global dust. We find that climate and chemical transport models overestimate North African dust absorption aerosol optical depth (AAOD) by up to a factor of two. This occurs primarily because models overestimate the dust imaginary refractive index, the effect of which is partially masked by an underestimation of large dust particles. Similar factors might contribute to an overestimation of AAOD retrieved by the Aerosol Robotic Network, which is commonly used to evaluate climate and chemical transport models. The overestimation of dust absorption by models could lead to substantial biases in simulated dust impacts on the Earth system, including warm biases in dust radiative effects.

Abstract. Mineral dust aerosols cool and warm the atmosphere by scattering and absorbing both solar (short-wave: SW) and thermal (long-wave: LW) radiation. However, large uncertainties remain in dust radiative effects, largely due to differences in the dust size distribution and optical properties simulated in Earth system models. Here, we improve the simulated dust properties with datasets that leverage measurements of size-resolved dust concentration and asphericity factor (improved simulation) in a coupled global chemical transport model (IMPACT) with a radiative transfer module (RRTMG) (default simulation). The global and annual average of dust aerosol optical depth at 550 nm (DAOD550) from the improved simulation (0.029) falls within the range of a semi-observation-based estimate (0.030 ± 0.005), in contrast to that (0.023) of the default simulation. Improved agreement against semi-observation-based estimate of the radiative effect efficiency was obtained using less absorptive SW and more absorptive LW dust refractive indices. Our sensitivity simulations reveal that the improved simulation leads to a similar net global dust radiative effect at the Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) on a global scale to the default simulation (−0.08 vs. −0.09 W ·m−2) but results in less cooling at the surface (−0.23 vs. −0.88 W ·m−2), because of enhanced LW warming by coarser aspherical dust. Our results thus suggest less atmospheric radiative heating due to aspherical dust with coarser size over the major source regions (0.15 vs. 0.79 W ·m−2 on a global scale).

Mineral dust aerosols impact Earth’s energy budget through interactions with radiation, clouds, atmospheric chemistry, the cryosphere and biogeochemistry. In this Review, we summarize these interactions and assess the resulting impacts of dust, and of changes in dust, on global climate and climate change. The total effect of dust interactions on Earth’s global energy budget—the dust effective radiative effect—is -0.2 ± 0.5 Wm-2 (90% confidence interval), suggesting that dust net cools the climate. Global dust mass loading has increased 55 ± 30% since pre-industrial times, driven largely by increases in dust from Asia and North Africa, leading to changes in the Earth’s energy budget. Indeed, this increase in dust has produced a global mean effective radiative forcing of -0.07 ± 0.18 Wm-2, somewhat counteracting greenhouse warming. Current climate models and climate assessments do not represent the historical increase in dust and thus omit the resulting radiative forcing, biasing climate change projections and assessments of climate sensitivity. Climate model simulations of future changes in dust diverge widely and are very uncertain. Further work is thus needed to constrain the radiative effects of dust on climate and to improve the representation of dust in climate models.

Aircraft measurement campaigns have revealed that super coarse dust (diameter >10 μm) surprisingly accounts for approximately a quarter of aerosols by mass in the atmosphere. However, most global aerosol models either underestimate or do not include super coarse dust abundance. To address this problem, we use brittle fragmentation theory to develop a parameterization for the emitted dust size distribution that includes emission of super coarse dust. We implement this parameterization in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and find that it brings the model in good agreement with aircraft measurements of super coarse dust close to dust source regions. However, the CESM still underestimates super coarse dust in dust outflow regions. Thus, we conclude that the model underestimation of super coarse atmospheric dust is in part due to the underestimation of super coarse dust emission and likely in part due to errors in deposition processes.

Abstract. Even though desert dust is the most abundant aerosol by mass in Earth's atmosphere, the relative contributions of the world’s major dust source regions to the global dust cycle remain poorly constrained. This problem hinders accounting for the potentially large impact of regional differences in dust properties on clouds, the Earth's energy balance, and terrestrial and marine biogeochemical cycles. Here, we constrain the contribution of each of the world’s main dust source regions to the global dust cycle. We use an analytical framework that integrates an ensemble of global model simulations with observationally informed constraints on the dust size distribution, extinction efficiency, and regional dust aerosol optical depth. We obtain a data set that constrains the relative contribution of each of nine major source regions to size-resolved dust emission, atmospheric loading, optical depth, concentration, and deposition flux. We find that the 22–29 Tg (one standard error range) global loading of dust with geometric diameter up to 20 μm is partitioned as follows: North African source regions contribute ~50 % (11–15 Tg), Asian source regions contribute ~40 % (8–13 Tg), and North American and Southern Hemisphere regions contribute ~10 % (1.8–3.2 Tg). Current models might on average be overestimating the contribution of North African sources to atmospheric dust loading at ~65 %, while underestimating the contribution of Asian dust at ~30 %. However, both our results and current models could be affected by unquantified biases, such as due to errors in separating dust aerosol optical depth from that produced by other aerosol species in remote sensing retrievals in poorly observed desert regions. Our results further show that each source region's dust loading peaks in local spring and summer, which is partially driven by increased dust lifetime in those seasons. We also quantify the dust deposition flux to the Amazon rainforest to be ~10 Tg/year, which is a factor of 2–3 less than inferred from satellite data by previous work that likely overestimated dust deposition by underestimating the dust mass extinction efficiency. The data obtained in this paper can be used to obtain improved constraints on dust impacts on clouds, climate, biogeochemical cycles, and other parts of the Earth system.

Even though desert dust is the most abundant aerosol by mass in Earth s atmosphere, the relative contributions of the world s major source regions to the global dust cycle remain poorly constrained. This problem hinders accounting for the potentially large impact of regional differences in dust properties on clouds, the Earth s energy balance, and terrestrial and marine biogeochemical cycles. Here, we constrain the contribution of each of the world s main dust source regions to the global dust cycle. We use an analytical framework that integrates an ensemble of global aerosol model simulations with observationally informed constraints on the dust size distribution, extinction efficiency, and regional dust aerosol optical depth (DAOD). We obtain a dataset that constrains the relative contribution of nine major source regions to size-resolved dust emission, atmospheric loading, DAOD, concentration, and deposition flux. We find that the 22 29 Tg (1 standard error range) global loading of dust with a geometric diameter up to 20 um is partitioned as follows: North African source regions contribute 50% (11 15 Tg), Asian source regions contribute 40% (8 13 Tg), and North American and Southern Hemisphere regions contribute 10% (1.8 3.2 Tg). These results suggest that current models on average overestimate the contribution of North African sources to atmospheric dust loading at 65 %, while underestimating the contribution of Asian dust at 30 %. Our results further show that each source region s dust loading peaks in local spring and summer, which is partially driven by increased dust lifetime in those seasons. We also quantify the dust deposition flux to the Amazon rainforest to be 10 Tg yr1, which is a factor of 2 3 less than inferred from satellite data by previous work that likely overestimated dust deposition by underestimating the dust mass extinction efficiency. The data obtained in this paper can be used to obtain improved constraints on dust impacts on clouds, climate, biogeochemical cycles, and other parts of the Earth system.

Even though desert dust is the most abundant aerosol by mass in Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric models struggle to accurately represent its spatial and temporal distribution. These model errors are partially caused by fundamental difficulties in simulating dust emission in coarse-resolution models and in accurately representing dust microphysical properties. Here we mitigate these problems by developing a new methodology that yields an improved representation of the global dust cycle. We present an analytical framework that uses inverse modeling to integrate an ensemble of global model simulations with observational constraints on the dust size distribution, extinction efficiency, and regional dust aerosol optical depth. We then compare the inverse model results against independent measurements of dust surface concentration and deposition flux and find that errors are reduced by approximately a factor of two relative to current model simulations of the Northern Hemisphere dust cycle. The inverse model results show smaller improvements in the less dusty Southern Hemisphere, most likely because both the model simulations and the observational constraints used in the inverse model are less accurate. On a global basis, we find that the emission flux of dust with geometric diameter up to 20 μm (PM₂₀) is approximately 5,000 Tg/year, which is greater than most models account for. This larger PM₂₀ dust flux is needed to match observational constraints showing a large atmospheric loading of coarse dust. We obtain gridded data sets of dust emission, vertically integrated loading, dust aerosol optical depth, (surface) concentration, and wet and dry deposition fluxes that are resolved by season and particle size. As our results indicate that this data set is more accurate than current model simulations and the MERRA-2 dust reanalysis product, it can be used to improve quantifications of dust impacts on the Earth system.