Meteorological causes of harmattan dust in West Africa

We investigated the temporal dynamics of dust entrainment in the Bodele Depression, Central Sahara, to better understand the intra-annual variability of aerosol emission in the world's largest dust source. The linkages between dust entrainment and large-scale meteorological factors were examined by correlating several meteorological variables in the Mediterranean and Africa north of the equator with the aerosol concentrations in the Bodele Depression separately for winter and summer. The methodological tools applied are NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and the aerosol index of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS-AI), available for 15 years from 1978 to 1993. We found that dust mobilisation during the Harmattan season is highly dependent on air pressure variability in the Mediterranean area. High pressure to the north of the Bodele intensifies the NE trade winds, leading to an increased entrainment of dust in the Bodele Depression. In summer, dust mobilization cannot be explained by the large scale meteorological conditions. This highlights the importance of local to regional wind systems linked to the northernmost position of the intertropical convection zone (ITCZ) during this time. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.