Climatology of air mass trajectories and aerosol optical thickness over Ouagadougou

Abstract

We present in this paper a climatological study of back trajectories of air masses over Ouagadougou using the HYSPLIT model. The seasonal variability of the 300m, 1000m and 3000m wind trajectories were studied after a discussion related to the accuracy of trajectory models based on the work of Stohl. To this is added the climatology of the optical thickness at 675nm obtained by inversion of photometric measurements of AERONET network. A link was established between the backward trajectories and the aerosol optical thickness. An important conclusion of this approach has been to identify one of the main aerosol sources that influence the atmospheric optical properties over Ouagadougou especially during major dust events.

KEYWORDS: 1-backward trajectories, 2-aerosol optical thickness, 3- mineral dust, 4-HYSPLIT, 5-AERONET