Studies of saharan dust intrusions over bucharest using ceilometer’s measurements and satellite data

¹ University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, Măgurele - Ilfov, Romania,
² Romanian Air Traffic Services, Bucharest, Romania
³ National Institute for Aerospace Research “ElieCarafoli”, Bucharest, Romania
⁴ National Institute of Research & Development for Optoelectronics, Măgurele - Ilfov, Romania
⁵ POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Bucharest, Romania

^* denisaurlea@gmail.com

Published online: 13 April 2018

Abstract

Three case studies of Saharan dust intrusions over southern Romania were performed. For these studies the database from the ceilometers located at Magurele and Strejnic was used. In addition, the meteorological conditions were analyzed using the WLK Catalogue based on the Objektive Wetterlagenklassifikation classification of the weather types [1]. This catalogue uses information from three basic tropospheric levels: 925, 700 and 500 hPa, and information on the precipitable water content over the entire atmosphere column. Geopotential fields at 925hPa and 500hPa are used for establishing the cyclonicity or anticyclonicity, while the U and V components of wind at 700hPa for establishing the dominant direction of the wind flow. For better understanding of the atmospheric parameters we performed HYSPLIT dispersion and trajectories analysis in conjunction with DREAM model output data.