Modeling Asian Dust Storms Using WRF‐Chem During the DRAGON‐Asia Field Campaign in April 2012

Abstract Asian mineral dust substantially influences air quality as well as weather and climate. It is important to forecast dust storms as a part of air quality modeling to protect public health and minimize the disruption to essential daily routines. In this study, we simulated the dust episodes during the DRAGON‐NE Asia field campaign in April 2012 utilizing the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF‐Chem) with 5 dust emission options and evaluated the model results with the measurements from multiple instruments including Korean geostationary satellites Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) and Meteorological Imager (MI). The model well predicted the dust occurrences, transport, and vertically elevated structure, compared to the satellite aerosol optical depths (AOD), the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) AOD and size distribution parameter Angstrom Expo…