Investigating Dust Storm Dynamics: Quantifying Terrestrial Impacts Using WRF-Chem in Arid Regions

Mohseni, Fateme , Hamidi, Mehdi

2025-12-01 EARTH SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENT 2025   9(卷), 4(期), (3635-3650页)

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In this study, we examined the contributions of two critical vegetation parameters, the leaf area index (LAI) and green vegetation fraction (GVF), as well as land use and soil moisture on the rate of dust emission in the WRF-chem model. For each parameter, we analyzed its influence on dust emissions under extreme conditions. The term "worst conditions" refers to the lowest vegetation (GVF and LAI set to 0) and soil moisture and land use (set to 16) scenarios leading to the highest dust emissions in the model. Our findings highlight the significant roles of green vegetation fraction (GVF) and soil moisture (SM) as the most influential parameters on dust emission flux, both showing significant negative correlations with dust load, resulting in a 33% and 17% increase in dust load, respectively. Conversely, land use and leaf area index demonstrated negligible effects equal to 0.1% on dust storms. When both GVF and LAI were set to zero simultaneously, the dust load increased by 49% compared to the base simulation with normal vegetation cover. This highlights the strong sensitivity of dust emissions to vegetation cover reduction under extreme conditions. The findings of this study clearly demonstrate that climatic variations, particularly vegetation conditions and soil moisture, are critical components driving changes in dust emission levels in arid lands. Additionally, the noticeable difference in dust output between the two vegetation indices highlights the distinct WRF-Chem modeling approaches used for each and underscores the significance of the model's definition method.