Evolution of Extreme Dust Events in 3D Environment

Overview

KVL in collaboration with Prof. Ibrahim Hoteit's group visualized a simulation of an extreme dust event that happened in Saudi Arabia in July of 2018. With the goal of understanding the formation, progression, and driving factors behind the storm.

Dust is one of the main components of atmospheric particles in desert regions. The concentration, composition, and spatial distribution of these dust particles in the atmosphere vary over time and could significantly impact the weather, climatological conditions, radiative forcing and transfer, and ecosystem dynamics. Scientists and decision-makers are interested in analyzing the evolution of dust events (including their formation, dynamics, and interactions with the environment), understanding the main contributing factors and atmospheric conditions that intensify these events and lead to extreme dust events, examining the role of topographic features, and gaining insights into their relationship with global teleconnections

With this work we developed a system to analyze the output from the WRF simulation, Weather Research and Forecasting, simulation run at a fine temporal resolution on Shaheen II. This resulted in a large amount of data that necessitated the design of the visualization environment to quickly process and visualize the simulation results. This system also aids in understanding the interactions between different atmospheric parameters, the impact of terrain surface characteristics, and more, providing a holistic view of the dust events. The paper entitled “Evolution of Extreme Dust Events in 3D Environment” can be accessed here.