Investigating the Coherence Between a Global and a Limited Area Model for Dust Particle Production and Distribution in N-Africa

The choice of the parameterization scheme, the input parameters and the spatial resolution are options that can provide significantly different modelling results for the processes of desert dust production and transport. This work will discuss the level of coherence between a regional and a global modelling system with regards to the simulation of desert dust production and transport in N-Africa. The limited-area model SKIRON/Dust and the atmospheric chemistry general circulation model EMAC (ECHAM5/MESSy2 Atmospheric Chemistry) have been applied using a common physically-based dust emission scheme. The differences between the two modelling systems and the comparison with the observations will be analysed and discussed, as well as the plans for future work in their offline coupling.