Diana Francis

• Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences
• ENGEOS Lab Head at Khalifa University

You are kindly invited to take part of the live chat sessions in this year EGU. Our presentation and related materials can be found here: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/EGU2020-12738.html Comments and discussion are most welcome! All the best,

This study reports the occurrence of intense atmospheric rivers (ARs) during the two large Weddell Polynya events in November 1973 and September 2017 and investigates their role in the opening events via their enhancement of sea ice melt. Few days before the polynya openings, persistent ARs maintained a sustained positive total energy flux at the s...

This study investigates the underlying atmospheric dynamics associated with intense dust storms in summer 2018 over the Arabian Peninsula (AP); a major dust source at global scale. It reports, for the first time, on the formation of cyclone over the Empty Quarter Desert as important mechanism for intense dust storms over this source region. The dus...

This study investigates the atmospheric dynamics of the major dust storm that occurred in June 2020 over the Sahara and during which dust clouds associated with the highest‐on‐record aerosol optical depths were transported towards the America. An anomalous atmospheric circulation pattern in the mid‐latitudes, linked to a circum‐global wavetrain, re...

Ice shelf instability is one of the main sources of uncertainty in Antarctica's contribution to future sea level rise. Calving events play a crucial role in ice shelf weakening but remain unpredictable, and their governing processes are still poorly understood. In this study, we analyze the unexpected September 2019 calving event from the Amery Ice...

Characterization of black carbon (BC) on a fine scale across the world is essential for understanding its climate and health impacts. However, a paucity of BC mass measurements in different parts of the world and the coarse scale resolution of global models have inhibited evaluation of global BC emission inventories. Here, we apply a novel dataset...

Antarctic atmospheric rivers (ARs) are a form of extreme weather that transport heat and moisture from the Southern Hemisphere subtropics and/or mid-latitudes to the Antarctic continent. Present-day AR events generally have a positive influence on the Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance by producing heavy snowfall, yet they also cause melt of sea ice...

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) in simulating meteorological parameters and concentrations of air pollutants across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for June and December 2022, representing the contrasting summer and winter climatic conditions. The assessme...

Antarctic sea ice and its snow cover play a pivotal role in regulating the global climate system. Understanding the intricate interplay between atmospheric dynamics, ocean circulation and mixed-layer properties, and sea ice is essential for predicting future climate change scenarios. This study investigates the relationship between atmospheric cond...

Summertime convection in the arid United Arab Emirates (UAE) is mostly confined to the eastern and northeastern sides of the country, known as primary convection. Convection can also occur in the drier central and western parts of the country; this is called secondary convection. However, the mechanisms behind the latter are still not fully underst...

Khalifa University of Science and Technology today announced scientists and researchers from its Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) laboratory and the Earth Science department have deployed Snow Ice Mass Balance (SIMBA), a special instrument to study ice in Antarctica. This is the first time scientists from any institution in the UAE h...

The United Arab Emirates holds great historical importance, as evidenced by many archaeological sites, such as the Jebel Hafit Tombs and the Hili Archeological Park in Al Ain. At the western edge of Mutaredh Oasis, a major new archaeological site was discovered in 2023 during a construction project. Several important archeological features have bee...

The Arabian Peninsula (AP) is notable for its unique meteorological and climatic patterns and plays a pivotal role in understanding regional climate dynamics and dust emissions. The scarcity of ground-based observations makes atmospheric data essential, rendering reanalysis and satellite products invaluable for understanding weather patterns and cl...

This work focuses on using multi-frequency sound waves to dissipate fog. It is a promising fog-dissipation technique due to its ease of control, flexibility, environmental friendliness, and no interference with traffic flow. This study introduces a novel approach to dissipate artificial fog generated inside an experimental setup utilizing harmonica...

Measurements of fog microphysics were conducted during the winter season of 2021–2022 at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), located in the Western coastal region of the United Arab Emirates. Twelve fog events were observed during this period. The primary objective of this study is to detail the microphysical characteristics of these events and...

June 2023 was dustless in eastern tropical Atlantic, dusty in northeastern Africa. • The negative North Atlantic Oscillation suppressed dust emission over western Sahara. • A southward shifted African Easterly Jet hindered the downstream transport of dust. • Sea surface temperatures off African coast were 2–2.5 K above climatological mean. • Mu...

Plain Language Summary Atmospheric Rivers (ARs) are narrow and long bands of high water vapor content, which largely originate in the tropics or subtropics and propagate into mid‐ and high‐latitudes. They can bring beneficial rain and snow but, in particular the most intense, can lead to catastrophic flooding and loss of life. One of such occurrenc...

The Empty Quarter Desert, one of Earth's major dust sources, frequently experiences dust storms due to wind erosion. Despite its significance as a primary dust source on a global scale, in‐situ observations from this region had not been reported until very recently. In summer 2022, the WInd‐blown Sand Experiment (WISE) Phase‐1 was initiated in the...

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) in simulating meteorological parameters and concentrations of gaseous pollutants across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the months of June and December 2018, representing the contrasting climatic conditions of summer and...

Observational and reanalysis datasets reveal a northward shift of the convective regions over northern Africa in summer and an eastward shift in winter in the last four decades, with the changes in the location and intensity of the thermal lows and subtropical highs also modulating the dust loading and cloud cover over the Middle East and North Afr...

Between March 15-19, 2022, East Antarctica experienced an exceptional heatwave with widespread 30-40° C temperature anomalies across the ice sheet. In Part I, we assessed the meteorological drivers that generated an intense atmospheric river (AR) which caused these record-shattering temperature anomalies. Here in Part II, we continue our large, col...

Between March 15-19, 2022, East Antarctica experienced an exceptional heatwave with widespread 30-40° C temperature anomalies across the ice sheet. This record-shattering event saw numerous monthly temperature records being broken including a new all-time temperature record of -9.4° C on March 18 at Concordia Station despite March typically being a...

The Middle East has major sources of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but a dearth of ground-based measurements precludes an investigation of its regional and temporal variability. This is achieved in this work with satellite-derived estimates from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) and OCO-3 missions from September 2014 to Febr...

African desert dust is emitted and long-range transported with multiple effects on climate, air quality, cryosphere, and ecosystems. On 21-23 February 2021, dust from a sand and dust storm in northern Africa was transported to Finland, north of 60°N. The episode was predicted 5 days in advance by the global operational SILAM forecast, and its key f...

For the first time, the changes in the atmospheric electric field (Ez) during foggy conditions is studied in a hyper-arid region; the United Arab Emirates (UAE), using comprehensive measurements during the Wind-blown Sand Experiment (WISE)-UAE. The longer the fog persists, the more variable Ez becomes, primarily due to the fog's ability to absorb a...

Pine Island Glacier (PIG) has recently experienced increased ice loss that has mostly been attributed to basal melt and ocean ice dynamics. However, atmospheric forcing also plays a role in the ice mass budget, as besides lower-latitude warm air intrusions, the steeply sloping terrain that surrounds the glacier promotes frequent Foehn winds. An inv...

Fog augments the wet deposition of airborne particles entrained in its hydrometeors. This article aims to characterize fog deposition processes around the Barakah nuclear power plant (BNPP), in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and assess the potential impact of fog on the deposition rate of radionuclides in case of an accidental release. To this end...

In this paper, the feasibility of satellite remote sensing in detecting and predicting locations of buried objects in the archaeological site of Saruq al-Hadid, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was investigated. Satellite borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is proposed as main technology for this initial investigation. In fact, SAR is the only satel...

Polynyas, or ice-free regions within the sea ice pack, are a common occurrence around Antarctica. A recurrent and often large polynya is the Terra Nova Bay Polynya (TNBP), located on the western side of the Ross Sea just off Victoria Land. In this study, we investigate the atmospheric conditions leading to the occurrence of the TNBP and its spatial...

Monitoring Greenhouse gases and climate change over the Arabian Peninsula

Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas with an important contribution to global warming. While national and international efforts have been put in place to reduce methane emissions, little is known about its variability, especially in hotspot regions where natural and anthropogenic emissions are compounded. In this study, the current state of CH4...

The Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) plays a critical role in controlling and regulating the exchange of heat, energy, moisture, aerosols, and trace gasses between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere. In this project, the student used radiosondes and active remote sensing data (using a lidar system deployed by ENGEOS lab) to characterize the PBL o...

Pine Island Glacier (PIG) has recently experienced increased ice loss mostly attributed to basal melt and ocean-ice dynamics. However, atmospheric forcing also plays a role in the ice mass budget, as besides lower-latitude warm air intrusions, the steeply sloping terrain that surrounds the glacier promotes frequent Foehn winds. An investigation of...

Large amounts of dust in the air can disrupt daily activities and pose a threat to human health. In May 2022, consecutive major dust storms occurred over the Middle East resulting in severe environmental, social and health impacts. In this study, we investigate the exceptional factors driving these storms and the effects of the dust clouds. Using a...

EDITORIAL article of the Special Issue in Frontiers in Environmental Sciences: Atmospheric Dust: How it affects climate, environment and life on Earth? https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/23321/atmospheric-dust-how-it-affects-climate-environment-and-life-on-earth#articles

In this study, the link between the occurrence of consecutive fog days in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the associated synoptic-scale circulation is investigated. This is particularly pertinent, as such a link may provide an important predictive skill for a phenomenon that has a pronounced impact on road and air traffic but is still poorly sim...

https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/iarc2022/

In this study, we characterize the meteorological conditions and planetary boundary layer dynamics in western United Arab Emirates based on 2012–2020 in-situ measurements. This multi-year analysis is then complemented by an intensive field-campaign in winter 2021 from which we address the main patterns of the atmospheric circulation and the boundar...

Observation‐based and modeling studies have identified the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (EMME) region as a prominent climate change hotspot. While several initiatives have addressed the impacts of climate change in parts of the EMME, here we present an updated assessment, covering a wide range of timescales, phenomena and future pathways....

Tropical cyclones (TC) are one of the biggest natural hazards with significant threat to life and property due to storm surge, flooding and extreme winds. Combined, these hazards substantially increase the potential for loss of life and damage especially in populated landfall‐locations such as the countries on the Arabian Gulf and Sea of Oman. Henc...

Accurate simulation of boundary layer surface meteorological parameters is essential to achieve good forecasting of weather and atmospheric dispersion. This paper is devoted to a model sensitivity study over a coastal hyper-arid region in the western desert of the United Arab Emirates. This region hosts the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), makin...

The calving of Antarctic ice shelves remains unpredictable to date due to a lack of understanding of the role of the different climatic components in such events. In this study, the role of atmospheric forcing in the calving of the Brunt Ice Shelf (BIS) in February 2021 is investigated using a combination of observational and reanalysis data. The o...

Role of Atmospheric Rivers in Saharan Dust Transport towards Europe and the Arctic.

With the projected expansion of arid/semi-arid regions in a warming world, precipitation enhancement activities such as cloud seeding will become increasingly popular and relied upon. Due to the inherent costs, a successful planning is crucial, which involves accurate model predictions. Here, the usefulness of the Weather Research and Forecasting (...

Talk at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) 35th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology - New Orleans, USA. https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/meetings-events/ams-meetings/35th-conference-on-hurricanes-and-tropical-meteorology/

Since the last decade, ambitious nuclear power programmes have begun maturing in the Arab countries, most importantly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The region's environment and population, therefore, are prone to adverse, long-term impacts of radionuclide discharges. To calculate the associated exposure scenarios, to estimate doses and their c...

• The aerosol loading during the COVID-19 lockdown in the Arabian Peninsula is investigated. • Despite lower anthropogenic emissions, the particulate matter concentrations increased. • Stronger nocturnal low-level jet in response to tropical convection in the Indian Ocean. • Increased Shamal winds and associate surface winds led to higher dust e...

Fog microphysics characteristics play an important role in fog life cycle, radiation and visibility. Measurements of fog microphysics are important in understanding these processes and improving existing model parameterization schemes. From 28 January to 17 February 2021, we carried out the first measurements of fog microphysics in the arid region...

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to investigate convection–aerosol interactions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a summertime convective event. Both an idealized and climatological aerosol distributions are considered. The convection on 14 August 2013 was triggered by the low-level convergence of the cyclonic circulatio...

Highlights • Extreme dust transport events from the Sahara Desert towards Europe occurred in February 2021, in association with atmospheric rivers (ARs) stretching all the way to northern Europe, with daily accumulated dust loadings of up to 60 g m−2. • Snow darkening by dust deposition over the Alps (the albedo decreased by 40%) and warming at th...

In June 2020, a major dust outbreak occurred in the Sahara that impacted the tropical Atlantic Ocean. In this study, the dust load and radiative forcing of the dust plumes on both the atmosphere and ocean surface is investigated by means of observations and modelling. We estimated dust loadings in excess of 8 Tg over the eastern tropical Atlantic,...

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to investigate convection-aerosol interactions in the United Arab Emirates for a summertime convective event. Both an idealised and scaled versions of a 7-year climatological aerosol distribution are considered. The convection on 14 August 2013 was triggered by the low-level convergence of th...

In this article, the climatological state and the seasonal variability of the Arabian heat low (AHL) and the intertropical discontinuity (ITD) are investigated over the Arabian Peninsula using the 1979–2019 ERA‐5 reanalysis data. The AHL is a summertime feature, mostly at 15°–35°N and 40°–60°E, exhibiting a clear strengthening over the last four de...

Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) over the southern Arabian Peninsula are more common during the spring months of March and April. In this paper, the processes behind such severe convective events and their local-scale impacts are investigated using reanalysis data, satellite-derived and observational products. The analysis of 95 MCS events from...

In this paper, the climatological state and the seasonal variability of the Arabian Heat Low (AHL) and the Intertropical Discontinuity (ITD) are investigated over the Arabian Peninsula using the 1979-2019 ERA-5 reanalysis data. The AHL is a summertime feature, mostly at 15º-35ºN and 40º-60ºE, exhibiting a clear strengthening over the last four deca...

This study provides insights on the composition and variability of atmospheric aerosols over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by analyzing the atmospheric conditions together with 14‐years (2006‐2019) of aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieved from CALIPSO (Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellite, and 7 years of AOD...

Presentation at the AMS 16th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, 1-4 June 2021.

A reliable fog forecast can assist in water resource management and mitigate against hazardous effects on transport networks. However, diagnosing fog from numerical weather prediction models remains a challenge and various methods have been developed to achieve this. One approach is to use a multi rule-based method, where threshold values of multip...

Polar regions – where most global ice sheets are stored – are very sensitive to today’s global warming. As a likely consequence, intense atmospheric rivers – long extensions of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere – have developed, leading to polar land ice melt. New research reveals that atmospheric rivers can also cause sea ice melt by bringin...

Welcome all to attend this year AGU2020 sessions. This talk will be in: Session: A016. Dust in a Changing Climate: From Small-Scale Insights to Large-Scale Understanding I Presentation Type: Invited Speaker Final Paper Number: A016-01 Day/Time: 38.0 - Oral: Monday, 7 December 2020: 07:00 - 08:00, Virtual All times are in PST (UTC-8)

A summertime convective event that developed on 5 September 2017 over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is investigated in this study. Atmospheric profiles from a ground‐based microwave radiometer along with satellite observations and in situ data from three weather stations in the UAE were used. The event was simulated using the Weather Research and...

Ice shelf instability is one of the main sources of uncertainty in Antarctica's contribution to future sea level rise. Calving events play crucial role in ice shelf weakening but remain unpredictable and their governing processes are still poorly understood. In this study, we analyze the unexpected September 2019 calving event from the Amery Ice Sh...

The impact of 26 December 2019 annular solar eclipse (ASE) on meteorological conditions over the southeastern Arabian Peninsula is investigated. Observations sourced from the spinning enhanced visible and infrared imager (SEVIRI) and vertical temperature profiles measured by a microwave radiometer were used. The ASE, which began at 03:36:37.9 Unive...

Dust storms: Drivers, characteristics and impacts

A severe dust storm occurred over north India during 12–16 June 2018 is analyzed using satellite observations, reanalysis, ground‐based measurements, and model (Meso‐NH) simulations focusing on the dynamic processes that caused the dust‐storm generation, uplift, and propagation as well as its impacts on air quality. The initial dust emission was tr...

The Sistan Basin has been recognized as one of the most active dust sources and windiest desert environments in the world. Although the dust activity in Sistan maximizes during the summer, rare but intense dust storms may also occur in the winter. This study aims to elucidate the atmospheric dynamics related to dust emission and transport, dust-plu...

Winds are thought to play a significant role in driving the asymmetric seasonal cycle of Antarctic sea ice growth and melt. https://eos.org/editors-vox/antarctic-seasonal-sea-ice-melts-faster-than-it-grows

Over the 40‐year satellite record, there has been a slight increasing trend in total annual mean Antarctic sea ice extent of approximately 1.5% per decade that is made up of the sum of significantly larger opposing regional trends. However, record increases in total Antarctic sea ice extent were observed during 2012–2014, followed by record lows (f...

43-year-old mystery of Polynya in Antarctica unraveled. The Weddell or Maud-Rise Polynya was spotted in mid September 2017 in the center of an ice pack in Antarctica’s Lazarev Sea, causing researchers to question how this phenomenon occurred during Antarctica’s coldest, winter months when ice is at its thickest. Using a combination of satellite obs...

A meandering polar jet was discovered as responsible for the emission and transport of dust from Northwest Africa to the Arctic. Poleward transport of warm, moist, and dust-laden air masses from the Sahara Desert results in ice melting in southeast Greenland.

The findings link dust storms to changes in the polar jet stream,. For the first time, the formation and consequences of dry cyclones in the Middle east and the Arabian Peninsula have been explored.

News Story by Nature Middle East on Francis et al., 2019c Severe dust storms over the Middle East have been traced back to atmospheric events at the top of the world.

The first 10 days of September 2015 were marked by intense dust activity over the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. This study examines the atmospheric conditions at the origin of the large dust storms during this period. We particularly investigate the atmospheric dynamics leading to the development of a large dry cyclone over Iraq on 31 Augu...

RDV @theIUGG at 9:45am in #Montreal to know more about how the #polarjet can create #ExtremeWeather events in the subtropics which in turns feedback into the #Arctic

Recently, our new study found that these mid-sea polynyas can be triggered by strong cyclonic storms. Using satellite observations and reanalysis data, we found that in some winters, atmospheric circulation moves a significant amount of heat and moisture from mid-latitudes to Antarctica, allowing large cyclones to develop over the sea ice pack. Whe...

During 2017 Austral winter, an open ocean polynya appeared in the Lazarev Sea, centered over Maud Rise. The vertical structure of the water column presented temporal and spatial variability with a weak stratification during the period of observations from January 2015 to January 2019. While over the Northern Maud Rise area, a highly stratified laye...

This study examines the role of atmospheric forcings in the occurrence of open‐ocean polynyas by investigating the case of the austral winter 2017's polynya located in the Lazarev Sea sector to the east of the Weddell Sea, known as the Maud Rise polynya or the Weddell Polynya. The ice‐free zone appeared in mid‐September 2017 and grew to as large as...

How polynyas can form, grow, and persist during Antarctica’s cold winter has long been a topic of investigation. Recent research points toward strong cyclonic winds—some as strong as hurricanes—as the trigger for open-ocean polynyas. Diana Francis, a scientist at New York University Abu Dhabi and leader of that study, explained that cyclonic winds...

Nearly 16 million km 2 of sea ice grows and subsequently melts each year in the seas surrounding Antarctica. This sixfold increase in sea ice extent effectively doubles the size of the continent each winter. The modest increase in Antarctic sea ice cover observed in the satellite record (1.5 % per decade, 1981–2010) masks substantial interannual an...

In this study, we identify a new mechanism by which dust aerosols travel over long distances across the eastern side of the North Atlantic Ocean toward the Arctic. The meandering polar jet was at the origin of both dust emission through cyclogenesis over Northwest Africa and poleward transport of the uplifted dust towards the Arctic, through cut-of...

Sea ice is a critical component of the climate system. It affects global climate dynamics through its interplay with planetary albedo, atmospheric circulation, ocean productivity and the thermohaline circulation. Nearly 16 million square kilometres of sea ice grows and subsequently melts each year in the seas surrounding Antarctica, effectively dou...

In this study, we identify a new mechanism by which dust aerosols travel over long distances across the eastern side of the North Atlantic Ocean toward the Arctic. The meandering polar jet was at the origin of both dust emission through cyclogenesis over Northwest Africa and poleward transport of the uplifted dust towards the Arctic, through cut-of...