Saint Mary’s University

Published purpose

This project will improve how mineral dust aerosol (MDA) is represented in models in the Arctic region. MDA’s are ice nucleating particles critical to the glaciation of warm and mixed-phase clouds, and cold cloud formation. Cloud phase (liquid vs. ice) strongly impacts how visible and infrared radiation from the Sun and Earth, respectively, transfers in the atmosphere, which in turn strongly impacts the climate effects of clouds (warming vs. cooling). The objectives of this project are to improve the emission of MDA in the Arctic region in a chemistry-transport model (GEOS-Chem) and a climate model (CanAM). The climate impact of the changes will be evaluated in terms of the direct radiative effect, and model outputs will be compared to PONEX/EarthCARE observations and other model simulations in the Arctic region, at the high spatial resolution required for this complex region.