Estimation of wind blown dust emissions in Europe and its vicinity

The assessment of the wind blown dust emission for Europe and selected regions of North Africa and Southwest Asia was carried out using a mesoscale model. The mesoscale model was parameterized based on the current literature review. The model provides data on PM10 emission from several dust reservoirs (anthropogenic, agriculture, semi- and natural) with spatial resolution of 10 × 10 km and temporal resolution of 1 h. The spatial variability of PM10 emission depends on soil texture, land cover/land use as well as meteorological conditions. Lands covered with water or permanently wet were excluded from the model. The land covered with vegetation is treated as dust reservoir whose dust emission capacity depends on the type of vegetation and cover. The dust reservoirs are divided into reservoirs with stable and unstable surface. The changes of emission in time depend on meteorological parameters. nd blown dust emission should be treated as a non-continuous spatio-temporal process. The emissions are estimated with high uncertainty. The estimated PM10 yearly total load emitted by wind from the European territory is highly differentiated in space and time and is equal to 0.74 Tg. The total load of PM10 emitted by wind from North African and Southwest Asian land surface located in the vicinity of European boundaries is assessed as nearly 50% (0.43 Tg) of the total load estimated for the whole Europe. erage yearly PM10 emission factor for Europe was estimated at 0.139 Mg km−2. 10 emission from agricultural areas is estimated at 52% of the total wind blown emission from the domain of the European Union project “Improving and applying methods for the calculation of natural and biogenic emissions and assessment of impacts to the air quality” - NatAir. mission factor for natural areas of Europe is estimated at 0.021 Mg km−2. Appropriate factors for agricultural areas and anthropogenic areas are 0.157 Mg km−2 and 0.118 Mg km−2, respectively. The latter two factors are probably underestimated due to omitting in the model of other dust emission mechanisms than aeolian erosion.