4.7 Article

Cloud icing by mineral dust and impacts to aviation safety

Journal

SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -

Publisher

NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-85566-y

Keywords

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Funding

  1. COST Action inDust (International Network to Encourage the Use of Monitoring and Forecasting Dust Products) [CA16202]
  2. D-TECT Grant - European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [725698]
  3. DLR VO-R young investigator group
  4. Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst [57370121]
  5. European Research Council (ERC) [725698] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)

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This study examines the impact of icing linked to convective weather conditions on two aircraft accidents, with a focus on desert mineral dust potentially enhancing the icing process. Numerical simulations show that desert dust can increase ice nucleation, leading to a proposed new icing parameter that includes predicted dust concentration for the first time.
Ice particles in high-altitude cold clouds can obstruct aircraft functioning. Over the last 20 years, there have been more than 150 recorded cases with engine power-loss and damage caused by tiny cloud ice crystals, which are difficult to detect with aircraft radars. Herein, we examine two aircraft accidents for which icing linked to convective weather conditions has been officially reported as the most likely reason for catastrophic consequences. We analyze whether desert mineral dust, known to be very efficient ice nuclei and present along both aircraft routes, could further augment the icing process. Using numerical simulations performed by a coupled atmosphere-dust model with an included parameterization for ice nucleation triggered by dust aerosols, we show that the predicted ice particle number sharply increases at approximate locations and times of accidents where desert dust was brought by convective circulation to the upper troposphere. We propose a new icing parameter which, unlike existing icing indices, for the first time includes in its calculation the predicted dust concentration. This study opens up the opportunity to use integrated atmospheric-dust forecasts as warnings for ice formation enhanced by mineral dust presence.

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