Authors: Jennie Bukowski and Sue van den Heever Title: Data associated with "Direct Radiative Effects in Haboobs" Description: These data include the model namelists used to generate the two haboob simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting Model Coupled to Atmospheric Chemistry (WRF-Chem) version 3.9.1.1. It also includes two input files and a Python script to run the TOBAC tracking algorithm, as well as links to any open source datasets or code used in the paper. Associated article citation: Bukowski, J., & van den Heever, S. C. (2021). Direct radiative effects in haboobs. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 126, e2021JD034814. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD034814 Recommended data citation: Bukowski, J. and van den Heever, S. C. (2021). Data associated with "Direct Radiative Effects in Haboobs". Colorado State University. Libraries. http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/233939 License: CC0 - Public Domain Primary Contact: Jennie Bukowski - jenbukow@ucla.edu Abstract: Convective dust storms, or haboobs, form when strong surface winds loft loose soils in convective storm outflow boundaries. Haboobs are a public safety hazard and can cause a near instantaneous loss of visibility, inimical air quality, and contribute significantly to regional dust and radiation budgets. Nevertheless, reliable predictions of convective dust events are inhibited by a lack of understanding regarding the complex and non-linear interactions between density currents, or convective cold pools, and dust radiative effects. In this paper, the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) is utilized to simulate the effect dust radiation interactions have on a long-lived haboob case study that spans three distinct radiative regimes: day (high shortwave), evening (low shortwave), and night (longwave only). A sophisticated algorithm is used to track and identify the numerous convective cold pool boundaries in the simulations and assemble statistics that represent the impact of dust radiative effects. To first order, dust scattering of shortwave radiation in the day leads to a colder, dustier, and faster moving convective cold pool. In the transition period of early evening, the shortwave effects diminish while longwave dust absorption leads to warmer, slower density currents that loft less dust as they propagate onward. At night, the haboob is again warmer due to dust absorption, but gustier in the more stable nocturnal surface layer, leading to enhanced dust emissions. File Description: Files to recreate the two WRF-Chem simulations: -namelist.wps - WRF-Chem WPS namelist to produce initial / boundary conditions for all simulations -namelist_rad.input - WRF-Chem input namelist for the haboob simulation with dust radiative effects included -namelist_norad.input - WRF-Chem input namelist for the haboob simulation without radiative effects Files to run the TOBAC tracking package: -run_tobac.py - Python code to run the TOBAC tracking package on the simulation data -wrf_sfcdust_rad.nc - Surface dust fields from the WRF-Chem simulation (with dust radiative effects) used as the TOBAC tracking variable in NetCDF format -wrf_sfcdust_norad.nc - Surface dust fields from the WRF-Chem simulation (without dust radiative effects) used as the TOBAC tracking variable in NetCDF format Links to Open Source Code / Files: -The WRF-Chem Version 3.9.1.1 source code is available on the WRF website: https://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_sources.html -The meteorological boundary conditions (NCEP GDAS/FNL 0.25 Degree Global Tropospheric Analyses and Forecast Grids) are available through the UCAR Research Data Archive (RDA): https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds083.3 -The Tracking and Object-based Analysis of Clouds (TOBAC) Python package (Heikenfeld et al., 2019) is available on GitHub. https://github.com/climate-processes/tobac File Formats: -README.txt - txt file -namelist.wps - txt file -namelist_rad.input - txt file -namelist_norad.input - txt file -run_tobac.py - txt file -wrf_sfcdust_rad.nc - NetCDF file -wrf_sfcdust_norad.nc - NetCDF file Funding: This work was funded by an Office of Naval Research – Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (ONR-MURI) grant (# N00014-16-1-2040). Keywords: Dust storm, haboob, cold pool, dust event, dust radiative effect, dust radiation, aerosol radiation, atmospheric aerosol, atmospheric dust, mineral dust, Arabian Peninsula, Middle East, convection, density current, surface fluxes. Spatial Coverage: Simulations span the Middle East with a focus on the Arabian Peninsula. Temporal Coverage: Simulations span 2016-08-02-2016-08-03.