On 29th September BSC is hosting the Kick-off meeting of the Dust Storms Assessment for the development of user-oriented Climate Services in Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe (DustClim) project funded by the EU ERA4CS project.
Sand and dust storms (SDS) are an important threat to life, health, property, environment and economy in many countries, and play a significant role in different aspects of weather, climate and atmospheric chemistry. There is an increasing need for SDS accurate information and predictions to support early warning systems, and preparedness and mitigation plans. The main objective of DustClim will be to develop dust-related services tailored to specific socio-economic sectors (air quality, aviation and solar energy) from an advanced dust regional model reanalysis for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe.
The role of BSC
Within the DustClim project, the Earth Science department of BSC is coordinating the overall project and will produce an advanced dust reanalysis based on the in-house MONARCH model. The novelties of this dust reanalysis are it's unprecedented high-resolution, the assimilation of satellite products over dust source regions with specific dust observational constraints, and a thorough evaluation using a wide variety of observations and data from experimental campaigns.
The event is taking place at BSC Headquarters (Sala Severo Ochoa) in Barcelona.