Predicting the mineral composition of dust aerosols – Part 2: Model evaluation and identification of key processes with observations

Abstract

Abstract. A global compilation from nearly sixty measurement studies is used to evaluate two methods of simulating the mineral composition of dust aerosols in an Earth system model. Both methods are based upon a Mean Mineralogical Table (MMT) that relates the soil mineral fractions to a global atlas of arid soil type. The Soil Mineral Fraction (SMF) method assumes that the aerosol mineral fractions match those of the soil. The MMT is based upon soil measurements after wet sieving, where soil aggregates are broken into smaller particles. The second method approximately reconstructs the aggregates and size distribution of the original soil that is subject to wind erosion. This model is referred to as the Aerosol Mineral Fraction (AMF) method because the mineral fractions of the aerosols differ from those of the wet-sieved parent soil, partly due to reaggregation. The AMF method remedies some of the deficiencies of the SMF method in comparison to observation. Only the AMF method restores phyllosilicate mass to silt sizes, where they are abundant according to observations. In addition, the AMF quartz fraction of silt particles is in closer agreement with measured values, in contrast to the overestimated SMF fraction. Measurements at separate clay and silt particle sizes are shown to be more useful for evaluation of the models, compared to the sum over all particles sizes that is susceptible to compensating errors in the SMF experiment. Model errors suggest that apportionment of the emitted silt fraction of each mineral into the corresponding transported size categories is an important remaining uncertainty. Substantial uncertainty remains in evaluating both models and the MMT due to the limited number of size-resolved measurements of mineral content that sparsely sample aerosols from the major dust sources. The importance of climate processes dependent upon aerosol mineral composition shows the need for global and routine mineral measurements.