Impact of radiatively interactive dust aerosols in the NASA GEOS-5 climate model: Sensitivity to dust particle shape and refractive index

We find a positive feedback of dust radiative forcing on emissions, in contrast with previous studies, which we attribute to our having a relatively strong longwave forcing caused by our simulating larger effective particle sizes. This longwave forcing reduces the magnitude of midday net surface cooling relative to other studies, and leads to a nighttime warming that results in higher nighttime wind speeds and dust emissions.

The radiative effects of dust particle shape have only minor impact on transport and emissions, with small (~5%) impact on top of atmosphere shortwave forcing, in line with previous studies, but relatively more pronounced effects on shortwave atmospheric heating and surface forcing (~20% increase in atmospheric forcing for spheroids). Shape effects on longwave heating terms are of order ~10%.