## 4 Discussion and Conclusions  
The ERA5-reanalysis and the Modis/AOD retrievals highlighted a plume intrusion of Saharan dust on 15 April in central/southern Italy. This plume was dislocated toward the Eastern Mediterranean regions on the following day (16 April). To simulate this event, two different dust emission schemes that are actually implemented in WRF-Chem under the GOCART aerosol package, are tested and compared with experimental data. These include the dry-deposition XMed experimental data, satellite retrievals, reanalysis products, and in situ measurements. The comparison concerns both optical AOD and mass properties (deposition, DUCM, and PM\({}_{10}\)). The above analysis clearly demonstrates that the AFWA dust emission scheme (run_3) significantly over-predicts the amount of mineral dust in atmosphere, while the UoC-S01 parameterization (run_2) gives overall better results expressed in term of optical properties, dry deposition, total mass, and the surface PM\({}_{10}\) loading. This may be explained by considering that the UoC-S01 scheme (run_2), compared to the AFWA scheme (run_3), produces a spatial distribution of emissions that are more localized and restricted to intense emission sites in the semi-arid region [4, 25] of the Algerian desert. The modeled AOD for the UoC-S01 scheme corresponds to an intense pulse transported northward on 15 April and eastward the following day. In this context, the spatial extent of the dust plume and the modeled AOD intensity is considerably lower compared to the AFWA scheme. This outcome confirms a sensitivity study performed by [PERSON] et al. [24] in the Sahara Desert showing that the AFWA scheme produced exceptionally high AOD values over North Africa compared to the UoC-S01 scheme. It may also be mentioned recent studies in southwest Asia by [PERSON] et al. [48] and [PERSON] et al. [23], with analogous results. However, also on the deposition end of the dust cycle there are probably systematic differences. As it became visible from the comparison of measured PM\({}_{10}\) with deposition, varying effective deposition velocities exist at the different locations. This and the discrepancy between the model and measured deposition indicate the need to apply more sophisticated size depending deposition schemes. These could for example include ultra-Stokesian effects [57], which might affect deposition velocities by 10% for particles with d \(>\)10 \(\upmu\)m, or could be non-Stokesian deposition models (a list is given e.g., by [PERSON] et al. [31]), which might modify effective deposition velocities by more than an order of magnitude. While these models are available in principle, the choice and implementation might be difficult due to their diversity [31] and missing information on boundary conditions (e.g., relevant friction velocities). Future investigations need to yield a more robust statistical assessment here. This will need to assess then also the sensitivity of the results to the precise particle size limits chosen for the model comparison. Finally, it is important to remark that when comparing model output and in situ measurements of PM data, the combined analysis of the Xmed-dry samples may provide additional information in the size distribution and composition of aerosol particles. It is important to point out that, in getting these results, we have performed all the code alterations as suggested by [PERSON] et al. (2018) and [PERSON] et al. (2018) that have been incorporated in WRF-Chem starting from version 4.0 (June 2018). However, both emission schemes would benefit from replacing the static erodibility map and soil particle distribution with remote sensed and in-situ observational data. Future works will go in this direction considering the WRF-Chem release above its version 4.0. Conceptualization, U.R., P.I., and K.K. ; Methodology, U.R., P.I., and K.K. ; Software, U.R. and M.M. ; Validation, P.I., M.N., K.E., V.V., and M.E. ; Formal analysis, K.K. ; Writing--original draft preparation, U.R. ; Writing--review and editing, E.M., S.V., and G.P.