Dust Impacts on the 2012 Hurricane Nadine Track during the NASA HS3 Field Campaign

Abstract

AbstractDuring the 2012 deployment of the NASA Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) field campaign, several flights were dedicated to investigating Hurricane Nadine. Hurricane Nadine developed in close proximity to the dust-laden Saharan air layer and is the fourth-longest-lived Atlantic hurricane on record, experiencing two strengthening and weakening periods during its 22-day total life cycle as a tropical cyclone. In this study, the NASA GEOS-5 atmospheric general circulation model and data assimilation system was used to simulate the impacts of dust during the first intensification and weakening phases of Hurricane Nadine using a series of GEOS-5 forecasts initialized during Nadine?s intensification phase (12 September 2012). The forecasts explore a hierarchy of aerosol interactions within the model: no aerosol interaction, aerosol?radiation interactions, and aerosol?radiation and aerosol?cloud interactions simultaneously, as well as variations in assumed dust optical properties. When only aerosol?radiation interactions are included, Nadine?s track exhibits sensitivity to dust shortwave absorption, as a more absorbing dust introduces a shortwave temperature perturbation that impacts Nadine?s structure and steering flow, leading to a northward track divergence after 5 days of simulation time. When aerosol?cloud interactions are added, the track exhibits little sensitivity to dust optical properties. This result is attributed to enhanced longwave atmospheric cooling from clouds that counters shortwave atmospheric warming by dust surrounding Nadine, suggesting that aerosol?cloud interactions are a more significant influence on Nadine?s track than aerosol?radiation interactions. These findings demonstrate that tropical systems, specifically their track, can be impacted by dust interaction with the atmosphere.