Sea-Salt Aerosol Forecasts Compared with Wave Height and Sea-Salt Measurements in the Open Sea

Abstract

Sea-salt aerosol (SSA) could influence the Earth’s weather and climate acting as cloud condensation nuclei. In spite of the importance of SSA effects on the Earth’s climate and weather, there were no measurements of sea-salt aerosols in the open sea. At Tel-Aviv University, the DREAM-Salt prediction system has been producing daily forecasts of 3-D distribution of sea-salt aerosol concentrations over the Mediterranean model domain 20 W–45E, 15 N–50 N (http://wind.tau.ac.il/salt-ina/salt.html). In order to evaluate the model performance in the open sea, daily modeled sea-salt aerosol concentrations were compared directly with sea-salt ground-based measurements taken at the tiny island of Lampedusa, in the Central Mediterranean. In order to further test the robustness of the model, the model performance over the open sea was indirectly verified by comparing modeled SSA concentrations with wave height measurements collected by the ODAS Italia 1 buoy. Model-vs.-measurement comparisons show that the model is capable of producing realistic SSA concentrations and their day-to-day variations over the open sea, in accordance with observed wave height and wind speed.