ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-11-10149-2011 Does the size distribution of mineral dust aerosols depend on the wind speed at emission? Kok J. F. 1 2 Advanced Study Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA now at: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA 07 10 2011 11 19 10149 10156 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/10149/2011/acp-11-10149-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/10149/2011/acp-11-10149-2011.pdf

The size distribution of mineral dust aerosols partially determines their interactions with clouds, radiation, ecosystems, and other components of the Earth system. Several theoretical models predict that the dust size distribution depends on the wind speed at emission, with larger wind speeds predicted to produce smaller aerosols. The present study investigates this prediction using a compilation of published measurements of the size-resolved vertical dust flux emitted by eroding soils. Surprisingly, these measurements indicate that the size distribution of naturally emitted dust aerosols is independent of the wind speed. The recently formulated brittle fragmentation theory of dust emission is consistent with this finding, whereas other theoretical models are not. The independence of the emitted dust size distribution with wind speed simplifies both the interpretation of geological records of dust deposition and the parameterization of dust emission in atmospheric circulation models.

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