Desert dusts

Prospero JM, Saharan dust transport over the North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean An overview, in Guerzoni S, Chester R. (eds.). The Impact of Desert Dust Across the Mediterranean, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, pp. 133— 151, 1996. 

Gatz, D. F., and J. M. Prospero, A Large Silicon-Aluminum Aerosol Plume in Central Illinois North African Desert Dust Atmos. Em iron., 30, 3789-3799 (1996). 

Global aerosol levels as measured by the Earth Probe, ADEOS, tfra/Nimbus-7 satellites can befound at this web address. Scientists use this data to observe a wide range of phenomena, such as desert dust storms, forest fires, and biomass burning. 

Fig. 7 Modelled source attribution on a sectorial basis for the Spain as function of total modelled PM10 mass. For each concentration bin, the number of occurrences is given. Note that desert dust is incorporated as boundary conditions in the simulations, explaining the large contribution of boundary conditions for Spain...

Some very fine-grained atmospheric dust is capable of crossing oceans and accumulating on different continents. Dust samples from the Sahara Desert of North Africa (Mali) are known to contain at least 17 mg kg-1 of arsenic and may be responsible for contaminating cisterns as far west as the Caribbean and eastern USA ((Holmes and Miller, 2002 Shinn, 2001) Table 3.17). Dust in one cistern from St. John, US Virgin Islands, contained about 38 mg kg-1 of arsenic ((Holmes and Miller, 2002) Table 3.17). Arsenic from Sahara Desert dust may also accumulate in soils, sediments, water, and plants in Florida and surrounding areas (Holmes and Miller, 2002). 

As part of some international and national projects, many measurements of atmospheric optical thickness were carried out. By using passive satellite sensors, estimates can be averaged vertically over a surface pixel. Therefore, to get a deeper understanding of the optical thickness of atmospheric layers, aircraft measurements are made which give the vertical distributions both of tropospheric aerosols and other characteristics of the atmosphere. Among successful airborne experiments we should highlight the ITOP, SHADE, and SAMUM experiments. These experiments made it possible to study the transformation of aerosols during the distant transport of smoke and desert dust. 

Guieu, C. and Thomas, A.J. (1996) Saharan aerosols from the soil to the ocean. In The Impact of Desert Dust Across the Mediterranean (eds Guerzoni, S. and Chester, R.). Kluwer, Dordrecht. 

Seven O, Dindar B, Aydemir S, Metin D, Ozinel MA, Icli S. Solar photocatalytic disinfection of a group bacteria and fungi aqueous suspensions withTi02, ZnO and Sahara desert dust. J Photochem Photobiol A Chem 2004 165 103-7. 

Mahowald, N., Prospero, J. M., Ridgwell, A. J., Tegen, I., and Torres, R. (2005). Global Iron Connections Between Desert Dust, Ocean Biogeochemistry, and Climate. Science 308, 67—71. 

Schiitz, L. (1980). Long range transport of desert dust with special emphasis on the Sahara. In Aerosols Anthropogenic and Natural, Sources and Transport (T. J. Kneip and P. J. Lioy, eds.), Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 338, 515-532. 

We analyzed the desert dust samples (yellow sand samples) for carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition with and without HCl treatment (Table 2). Using isotopic mass balance equations as below, carbon isotopic ratios of removed carbon from the Chinese loess samples (S CRemoved c)... 

A common size rai e definition for dust aerosol particles is greater than 0.5 im as stated however, in practise, dust aerosols such as desert dust storm aerosols, exhibit particles ranging from about 1 nm to over 100 pm in diameter. 

Desert dust storm aerosols that originate from large desert areas, such as the Gobi or Sahara deserts. These aerosols can be transported around the full extent of the earth s surface. 

Goudie, A. S. and N. J. Middleton (2006) Desert dust in the global system. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 287 p>p. 

Aerobiology and the global transport of desert dust. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21,638-644. 

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