DYNAMICAL AND RADIATIVE RESPONSE TO THE MASSIVE INJECTION OF AEROSOL FROM KUWAIT OIL BURNING FIRES

The effects of the injection of large amount of soot comparable to tha t produced in the burning of oil wells in Kuwait were studied using a 2-D mesoscale model. During the three day numerical simulation the gro und-atmosphere system appears to be strongly perturbed. A surface cool ing is produced in the first two days above and downwind of the source s. The cooling, between -10 C over the desert and - 0.5 C over the sea is dependent on the surface characteristics. The temperature decrease at the ground results in a stratified troposphere which inhibits conv ection and perturbs the normal diurnal variability of the boundary lay er while the upper levels are driven by the radiative warming of the a erosol layer. In this region after few hours the simulation produces a warming of 0.8 C reaching a maximum of 6 C is after 60 hours. During the last 2 days of simulation the long wave radiation emitted by the l ow altitude atmospheric layers contribute to mitigate the surface cool ing. A detailed discussion of the radiative and the dynamical interact ions is given and it is shown that beside the specific interest in the short term effects these results may be useful to parameterize the sm oke source for a GCM simulation.