Abstract
North African dust reaches the Caribbean region every summer supplying mineral dust particles which play an important role in the regional weather and public health. During the African dust season of summer 2020 several events, including the "Godzilla" mega dust event, were identified over the Caribbean. Under the framework of the NASA-funded project Caribbean Air-quality Alert and Management Assistance System-Public Health (CALIMA-PH), we compare results of the dust forecast models with the ground-based and satellite observations for events that happened in parallel with large convective systems over the region during June-July 2020. The models used are the global dust forecast model Goddard Earth Observing System-5 (GEOS-5) and the regional dust forecast model Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). Satellite observations are from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO). Ground-based observations (e.g., aerosol optical depth (AOD), depolarization ratio, particulate matter, scattering Angstrom exponent (SAE), dust surface concentration, height of dust layer) were performed at seven different locations (Cayenne, Martinique, Guadeloupe--French Territories, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Merida--Mexico and Miami--USA) over the Caribbean to provide a better understanding of African dust dispersal patterns over the region with a unique "Lagrangian" measurement, including the Godzilla mega dust event and tropical storms developed in the area. Results show that the dust forecast models were not always in agreement with the observations, and this was the particular case during the presence of tropical storms like Cristobal and Gonzalo. We will show the differences between the forecast provided by both models and the result of another run after ingesting the models with aerosol available data such as AOD.