Topic 4f – Part 2: Practical products - Aerosol forecasting
There are 5 main aerosol species that are used in CAMS aerosol forecasts, these are: sea-salt, desert dust, organic matter, black carbon and sulphates. These forecasts are available daily as total aerosol optical depth (AOD) ), which is a measure of the total amount of aerosol in a vertical column of the atmosphere, or as individual forecasts of each 5 species.
In this video Dr Melanie Ades shows us 3 different aerosol products, including a forecast during hurricane Ophelia in 2017 that brought desert dust from the Sahara over to Europe.
Featured Educator
- Dr Melanie Ades
Don’t forget you can download the video, transcript and take any quizzes available with the links on the right.
Interactive Apps
Explore global aerosols data in 3D with this interactive globe. Toggle the data sets on and off using the check box in the workbench located on the left side of the screen. You can also use the tools on the right side of your screen such as “toggle splitter” to view and compare different data layers at the same time. You can also change the base map and map view by clicking on the map icon on the top right of the screen.
Images
This is an image from MODIS showing aerosol optical depth over Europe on 16th October 2017. The areas in red have high aerosol optical depths.
NASA
This is an example of what a total aerosol optical depth (AOD) forecast from CAMS looks like.
CAMS
