Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Scientist and Head of Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Lab at Khalifa University, participated in the Antarctica Day event on 1 December 2021 at the Dubai Expo. The event, which was hosted by Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD), brought together the 35 people from the UAE who have visited the world’s polar regions of Antarctica and the Arctic.��

The purpose of the gathering was to share stories on historic UAE Antarctic and Arctic expeditions from the previous 50 years, discuss the importance of the polar regions to the UAE with respect to climate change and plan future environmental collaborations, in celebration of the UAE’s 50th anniversary.

“I have been studying polar regions and particularly Antarctica for more than five years,” Dr. Francis shared.��

“My interest is specifically in the climate science of Polar Regions with emphasis on the link between the atmosphere and the cryosphere (both land ice and sea ice). In this context, I organize every year, along with two other polar scientists, a workshop on Polar Meteorology and Climatology at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly to facilitate the exchange of new knowledge among the international community of polar scientists, which helps us to identify current gaps and plan future activities,” she added.

Currently, at the ENGEOS Lab, KU researchers are conducting a project on Antarctic sea ice and how global warming is affecting it. KU has instruments in Antarctica to measure the state of ice and gain invaluable knowledge about its variability. The work is being done in collaboration with Australia.

Future plans include additional projects to study the variability of Antarctic Ice and its impact on Sea level rise globally and regionally, as well as the development of new methods to investigate the Antarctic environment from space (via satellites) and on the ground (via in-situ observations).

The Antarctic Day event was organized under the Zayed’s Lights initiative. During the gathering, each participant received a Zayed light, which is a small solar powered light, in recognition of their contribution to Antarctic science and polar science in general.

Over 100 Zayed Lights were used in 2018 by a team of UAE researchers from EAD who traveled to Antarctica to light up the Antarctic sky, sending a message of unity, hope and action on climate change.

To symbolically raise awareness on the importance of climate change action, in replicating the initiative of EAD’s Team Zayed in Antarctica, the attendees at the Expo 2020 Dubai event wrote the following words: ‘Antarctica, Climate Change, Dubai Expo, UAE 50 Years and COP 28’, using 50 individual solar lights, reflecting 50 years of the UAE.

The participants, who are now part of the UAE Polar Network, also discussed the key messages from the August 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, which warned about the impact of climate change and the urgency to take action to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change in the future.��

Erica Solomon
Senior Publication Specialist
26 December 2021

The post Celebrating UAE’s Golden Jubilee with Solar Lights and Reflections on Antarctica appeared first on Khalifa University.

Middle Eastern governments must do more to tackle air pollution, experts say, with fuel subsidies and poor public transport the cause of poor air quality in many major cities.

Air pollution is a major health hazard across the globe, with the World Health Organisation stating that in 2019, 99 per cent of the world’s population lived in places where the institution’s air quality guidelines were not met.

Vehicles and dust major sources of pollution

As is the case elsewhere in the Gulf, road vehicles remain a significant source of pollution in the UAE, with more than three million vehicles using the country’s roads despite heavy investments in public transport, such as the Dubai Metro.

Aside from vehicle emissions, other major sources of PM2.5 in the Middle East include power plants, various industrial facilities and sand storms, the last of which may be affected by climate change, although current evidence is unclear.

Dr Diana Francis, a senior research scientist and head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences laboratory at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, says that from between about 2000 and 2010, dust emissions increased, but then fell back the following decade.

Read the rest of the article here:

The post These are the Pollution Hotspots of the Middle East appeared first on Khalifa University.

Despite being a desert country, the UAE has all the necessary ingredients for fog, seeing up to 50 foggy nights per year.��

Read Arabic story .

Why is there so much fog in a desert country? On Dr. Diana Francis, Head of the ENGEOS Lab , explains why the , despite being a desert country, has all the necessary ingredients for fog, seeing up to 50 foggy nights per year

— جامعة خليفة للعلوم والتكنولوجيا (@KhalifaUni)

Winter in the UAE brings respite from the scorching summer temperatures for which this region is famed. It also brings foggy mornings, enveloping the country from the skyscrapers in Dubai to the dunes in Liwa.

Despite being a desert country, the UAE has all the necessary ingredients for fog, seeing up to 50 foggy nights per year. Dry desert conditions exist next to the warm seas of the Gulf, with moist air carried inland by the afternoon sea breeze cooled by the night desert surface.

“The fog that forms over the UAE is known as radiation fog and is caused by the rapid cooling of the desert surface at night during the winter,” explained Dr. Diana Francis, Head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Lab at Khalifa University. “This cooling leads to cool air in the lower layers of the atmosphere, which condenses the water vapor present there. The UAE has an atmosphere rich in water vapor since it’s surrounded by water bodies, where sea breeze circulation brings large amounts of water vapor inland during the day, which is trapped and forms fog during the night.”

Fog can be considered as a low-lying cloud; it’s a visible aerosol of miniscule water droplets hovering above the ground. About 95 percent of the fog seen in the UAE is radiation fog, which is why it is so prevalent in the winter and not the summer. The other 5 percent is advection fog, meaning it forms over the surrounding seas and moves over the UAE. Regardless of the type of fog, when the sun rises and warms the country in the morning, the fog dissipates.

The desert part of the country also plays a vital role in the weather over the UAE. When the winds over the country are calm, the moist air blown in from the sea earlier in the day mixes with the dust and sand in the air from the desert. This dust acts as the catalyst for fog development.

“Dust is the main component in the aerosol load present in the atmosphere over the UAE,” explained Dr. Francis. “Aerosols act as condensation nuclei for water vapor, causing the water to condense around the dust particles in the air. This is the same principle that leads to the condensation of water vapor on the mirror when you shower—the mirror is the aerosol particle. Given how much of the atmosphere is sand from the desert and the large capacity of the desert to cool down quickly at night, it makes sense that two of the hot spots for fog formation in the UAE are the Sweihan desert and the South West of Abu Dhabi. Both�� are desert areas, with fog forming over these places, expanding, and then merging together, particularly over Abu Dhabi airport.”

ENGEOS lab research work shows that Abu Dhabi airport experiences more low visibility events than Dubai or Al Ain due to the fog that starts nearby. The fog is most frequent between 20 and 100 kilometers inland but can extend up to 200 kilometers inland over the desert, and tends to occur the most in December and January, even though the fog season lasts between September and March.

“At ENGEOS we perform now-casting of fog formation, spatial cover and duration using satellite observations and artificial intelligence techniques,” said Dr. Francis. “We also forecast fog formation, time of occurrence, intensity and duration one day in advance using modelling. We found that fog can occur any time between 7pm and 11am local time, but the highest number of events occur between 3am and 7am. This information is critical for operations at Abu Dhabi airport and the transport sector in general to reduce the risks related to fog and low visibility.”

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
28 March 2021

The post KU Researcher Explains What Makes the UAE So Foggy in the Winter appeared first on Khalifa University.

Intense Dust Emissions Carried Plumes 8,000 km from Sahara Desert and Across Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean and Southern United States

����

Researchers from Khalifa University’s Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Laboratory have discovered that the gigantic dust storm in June 2020 was the result of a ‘subtropical high’ off the western coast of the Saharan desert.

The ‘subtropical high’ is an area of high pressure, which suppresses precipitation and cloud formation, and has variable winds mixed with calm winds. Subtropical highs, otherwise known as ‘horse latitudes’ or ‘subtropical ridges’, are the latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees both north and south, where earth’s atmosphere is dominated by the high pressure area.

During the second-half of June 2020, this high pressure increased the north-south pressure gradient over the Saharan region, which resulted in the intensification of the northeasterly winds, producing highly intense dust emissions. In fact, the emissions were so intense that they were able to carry the Saharan dust plumes for approximately 8,000 km across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean and the southern United States from 14 to 25 June 2020. Generally, on an average, a dust storm lasts only for two to three days.

The June 2020 phenomenon was made possible because the ‘subtropical high’ enhanced the north-easterlies that are responsible for dust emissions, and the anti-cyclonic circulation associated with the African Easterly Jet (AEJ), a jet stream around 5-km in altitude above the Saharan desert, moving from east to west. The intensification of the AEJ favored a rapid westward transport of the emitted dust, before the dust particles were able to settle, according to a paper by Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Scientist, Head of ENGEOS Lab, Khalifa University. The paper was published today in the journal

Previous studies on large dust storms over the Sahara and the Middle East have linked the occurrence of highs and lows in the mid-latitudes and subtropics to the reduced sea ice cover in the Arctic and the Arctic warming. By losing sea ice, the temperature gradient between high-latitudes and the subtropics/tropics is less steep, thus making the polar jet slower. When the polar jet is slow, it meanders, creating persistent highs and lows in the subtropics and mid-latitudes.

The study by Dr. Francis has found that dust emissions continued as long as the (subtropical) ‘high’ remained stationary and ceased only when the ‘high’ merged with the general circulation again by 25 June. The paper explains the causes of the ‘Godzilla’ dust storm and links it to the global circulation and possible changes in the Arctic.

Highlighting the storm’s significance to the GCC region, Dr. Francis said: “The most intense dust storm to date in the Arabian Gulf region occurred in September 2015 and caused disruption to normal life, impacting some of the strategic installations. This event was actually caused by disturbances in the polar jet as well, which led to the formation of a dry cyclone and emitted a large amount of dust, according to our previous studies in 2019. It is important to shed light on the causes and the state of variability of dust storms, both the frequency and the intensity, over the major dust sources around the globe.”

The Saharan desert is the major dust source followed by the Arabian Peninsula, which comes second in terms of the total amount of dust aerosols emitted annually.

Since desertification is expected to increase in the Arabian Gulf region due to climate change and rising temperatures, the study suggests initiatives are necessary to mitigate this environmental and economic threat, perhaps by increasing the vegetated areas by planting trees and other type of flora.

Dr. Francis added: “Studies on the dust storms will help understand their long-term variability and identify the main drivers from regional to global scale, in order to improve our capabilities in predicting them and predict their impacts on the daily life and activities.”

As for forecast, based on the results of the published study, for instance, the researchers have found that the development of a ‘wave-train’ in the northern hemisphere with alternated highs and lows would be an indicator of the potential occurrence of extreme weather events over the subtropics and tropics. The ‘subtropical high’ was part of a wave-train in the northern hemisphere.

“The importance of identifying the causes of such extreme events and their link to the global circulation resides in the fact that this will help to predict them at least a few days in advance,” concluded Dr. Francis.

Clarence Michael
English Editor Specialist
1 December 2020

The post Researchers at Khalifa University’s ENGEOS Lab Identify ‘Subtropical High’ Pressure as Reason for Gigantic Dust Storm in June 2020 appeared first on Khalifa University.

Large-Scale Poleward Transport of Heat and Moisture by Atmospheric Rivers Causes A Stretch of Open Water in Antarctica

Researchers from Khalifa University’s Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Laboratory have unraveled a more than 40-year scientific mystery when they identified the reason for the occurrence of a body of unfrozen ocean that appeared within a thick body of ice during Antarctica’s winter, known as a Polynya event. Two major Polynya events were recorded in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica in 1973 and 2017.

In fact, Khalifa University researchers have discovered that synoptic-scale atmospheric rivers (AR) emerging from the tropics and spreading poleward into the Antarctic Ice Sheet are actually initiating this phenomenon. Anomalous increase in surface temperature was induced by the atmospheric rivers over the ice pack and caused melting and thinning of ice which led to the opening of what is known as the ‘Polynya’ event.

The Khalifa University study also connects this phenomenon, for the first time, to the larger-scale poleward movement of heat and moisture transported by atmospheric rivers, demonstrating their role in Antarctic sea ice melt during the winter and early spring seasons.

The research led by Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Scientist and Head of ENGEOS lab, was recently published in the journal of . Co-authors of the study are Dr. Kyle Mattingly from Rutgers University (USA), Dr. Marouane Temimi from Stevens Institute of Technology (USA) and Dr. Rob Massom and Dr. Petra Heil from the Australian Antarctic Division.

Khalifa University is the lead institution for this research project, which is funded by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company Masdar.

According to Dr. Francis, the study demonstrates that changes in the climate occurring at one place on the planet, say for example in the tropics, can have worldwide impact and affect as far as the South Pole.

She added: “Our analysis shows that the atmospheric rivers that initiated the polynya event in September 2017 were the most intense on record. The poleward transport of moisture and warmth by the atmospheric rivers was also the highest on record. Surprisingly, these atmospheric rivers resulted in the highest amount of snowfall on record over the study area, but because of the warm temperatures, it was warm snow that enhanced the ice melt and inhibited refreezing.”

“Previous studies have shown that under a warmer climate, atmospheric river activity in the Southern Ocean will intensify considerably. Given the role of atmospheric rivers in melting sea ice, as demonstrated in this study, it is becoming a pressing concern to assess the impact of atmospheric rivers on the Antarctic-wide sea-ice cover,” she concluded.

Dr. Francis’ previous research in 2019 into this phenomenon had found the important role of storms in triggering the opening of the polynya. However, her current research has found that if atmospheric rivers had not melted the ice before the storms, (a ubiquitous feature around Antarctica, which is not the case of the ARs that are of large scale spanning from the tropics to Antarctica), they would have not been able to trigger the opening of the large area of water.

Building on such research expertise and previous achievements, Khalifa University aims to further broaden the scope of its polar research, attracting young scientists and students to the next phase of this project for addressing the associated environmental challenges.

Earlier in 2019, Khalifa University Material Science and Engineering Graduate Tawaddod Alkindi had the opportunity to participate in the installation of 105 solar panels and three inverters that provide 30 KiloWatts to Casey research station’s grid, the first solar power array at an Australian Antarctic research station. Alkindi was the first student to complete her internship at the Casey research station, located on Vincennes Bay in the Windmill Islands, just outside the Antarctic Circle.

Clarence Michael
English Editor Specialist
12 November 2020

The post Khalifa University Scientists Unravel 40-Year Long Mystery of Large Sea in the Middle of Antarctic Ice Cover appeared first on Khalifa University.