New ACP Letter: Better representation of dust can improve climate models with too weak an African monsoon

30 July 2021

Earth system models have a few persistent biases that impinge on our ability to make robust future regional predictions of precipitation. For the last fifteen years, there has been little to no improvement in these biases. This work presents an accurate representation of how dust absorbs radiation based upon its observed mineralogical composition and size distribution. The exciting result shows that the representation of the African monsoon can be significantly improved in climate models in which the monsoon is too weak compared to observations.

Contact: Yves Balkanski (yves.balkanski@lsce.ipsl.fr)