Investigation of aerosols in South Africa: Comparison of measurements and modeling

The numerical LOTOS-EUROS model that provides information on the regional distribution of aerosols was implemented for a new domain, Southern Africa. The first set-up for the study areas is discussed and a comparison of model products (aerosol concentration and optical depth) to experimental data is presented. The model compares favorably to MODIS satellite products on a regional scale. Comparisons with in-situ instrumentation at specific locations reveal that the model generally capture temporal trends, but underestimates the absolute AOD-values. In the more pronounced case, this is attributed to the complex local orography of the measurement site that cannot be captured by the model.