Reviewers' comments: This manuscript describes the use of a four-wavelength (266 nm, 355 nm, 532 nm, 1064 nm) photoacoustic spectrometer to measure the absorption of various mineral dust (MD) components in aerosol form. The measured absorption values are combined with aerosol size distribution and mass measurements to derive mass specific absorption coefficients (MAC’s) for all seven components...

Partitioning of major and trace components in PM10–PM2.5–PM1 at an urban site in Barcelona (Spain) in the Western Mediterranean was studied in the period 2005–2006. Particular attention was paid to the partitioning of mineral matter and to the evidence of possible interactions of mineral matter with other pollutants (gaseous pollutants and secondary PM). The results showed a high contribution o...

Mixtures of organic compounds with mineral dust are ubiquitous in the atmosphere, whereas the formation pathways and hygroscopic behavior of these mixtures are not well understood. In this study, in situ DRIFTS, XRD, and a vapor sorption analyzer were used to investigate the heterogeneous reaction of acetic acid on α-Al(2)O(3), MgO, and CaCO(3) particles under both dry and humid conditions whil...

Rossiter, C. E. (1972). Brit. J. indusir. Med., 29, 31-44. Relation between content and composition of coalworkers' lungs and radiological appearances. The relation between radiological category of simple pneumoconiosis and dust content of the lung has been studied on a mixed group of 221 miners, of whom 76 had progressive massive fibrosis radiologically. The average radiological scores based o...

Both Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) satellite observations suggest that the narrow heterogeneous Red Sea coastal region is a frequent source of airborne dust that, because of its proximity, directly affects the Red Sea and coastal urban centers. The potential of soils to be suspended as airborne mineral dust depen...

[1] Airborne mineral dust can influence the climate by altering the radiative properties of the atmosphere, but the magnitude of the effect is uncertain. An idealized global model is developed to study the dust-climate system. The model determines the dust longwave and shortwave direct radiative forcing, as well as the resulting temperature changes, based on the specified dust distribution, hei...

Soil dust is a major constituent of airborne particles in the global atmosphere. Dust plumes frequently cover huge areas of the earth; they are one of the most prominent and commonly visible features in satellite imagery. Dust is believed to play a role in many biogeochemical processes, but the importance of dust in these processes is not well understood because of the dearth of information abo...

Saharan mineral dust exported over the tropical North Atlantic is thought to have significant impacts on regional climate and ecosystems, but limited data exist documenting past changes in long-range dust transport. This data gap limits investigations of the role of Saharan dust in past climate change, in particular during the mid-Holocene, when climate models consistently underestimate the int...

[1] Mineral dust interacts with radiation and impacts both the regional and global climate. The relative contribution of natural and anthropogenic dust sources, however, remains largely uncertain. Although human activities disturb soils and therefore enhance wind erosion, their contribution to global dust emission has never been directly evaluated because of a lack of data. The retrieval of aer...

We have analysed the full ISO spectrum of the planetary nebula NGC 6302 in order to derive the mineralogical composition of the dust in the nebula. We use an optically thin dust model in combination with laboratory measurements of cosmic dust analogues. We find two main temperature components at about 100 and 50 K respectively, with distinctly different dust compositions. The warm component con...