We present the first high-resolution (sub-annual) dust particle data set from West Antarctica, developed from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide deep ice core (79.468 S, 112.086 W), and use it to reconstruct changes in atmospheric circulation over the past 2400 years. We find a background dust flux of ∼ 4 mg m−2 year−1 and a mode particle size of 5–8 μm diameter. Through comparing the W...

Atmospheric nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAHs), which have been shown to have adverse health effects such as carcinogenicity, are formed in part through nitration reactions of their parent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere. However, little is known about heterogeneous nitration rates of PAHs by gaseous NO2 on natural mineral substrates, such as desert dust...

Dust plays a vital role in climate and biophysical feedbacks in the Earth system. One source of dust, the Bodélé Depression in Chad, is estimated to produce about half the mineral aerosols emitted from the Sahara, which is the world's largest source. By using a variety of new remote sensing data, regional modeling, trajectory models, chemical analyses of dust, and future climate simulations, we...

Atmospheric aerosols include gases and liquids, as well as solid particles. They include material derived from both oceans and landmass, as well as particles that form within the atmosphere, such as sulfates. Solid particles entrained in the atmosphere by detachment from poorly vegetated surfaces (the process of deflation) include, for example, rock and mineral dust, fine mineral aggregates, fi...

The limitations imposed by Mie scattering and atmospheric-induced beam scintillations on a direct line-of-sight optical link were investigated at 632.8 nm. The experimental investigations were carried out in Kuwait during the summer season when the local climate is characterized by high daily temperatures and frequent dust storms. Beam attenuation and scintillation data coupled with climatologi...

[1] Dust devils are localized meteorological phenomena frequently observed in terrestrial dry lands and desert landscapes as well as on Mars. They are low-pressure, warm core vortices that form at the bottom of convective plumes and loft dust from the surface. They move with the speed of the ambient wind and are tilted by wind shears. The Mars Pathfinder detected dust devils as dust plumes in t...

In Asian deserts environmental and anthropomorphic dust is a significant health risk to rural populations. Natural sources in dry landscapes are exacerbated by human activities that increase the vulnerability to dust and dust-borne disease vectors. Today in Central and Inner Asian drylands, agriculture, mining, and rapid development contribute to dust generation and community exposure. Thorough...

[1] A model-based investigation of the transport, distribution and deposition of mineral dust in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) is performed by using the GFDL Atmospheric Model (AM2). The study represents an attempt to quantify the contribution of the major sources by tagging dust based on its origin. We evaluate the contribution of each source to the emission, distribution, mass burden and depos...