Study of optical and microphysical properties of atmospheric desert dust observed over the Italian peninsula by remote sensing techniques
Authors: Mytilinaios Michail , Amodeo Aldo , De Rosa Benedetto , Papagiannopoulos Nikolaos , Papanikolaou Christina-Anna , Aslanoglu Yeser , Chadoulis Rizos-Theodoros , Charalampous Georgia , Fountoulakis Ilias , Kouklaki Dimitra , Moustaka Anna , Papetta Alkistis , Solomos Stavros , Mona Lucia 
Published: July 2024

Desert dust, as the most abundant aerosol type in the atmosphere, plays an important role in Earth&#8217;s climate and weather by influencing the radiation balance. The direct radiative effect of dust involves the scattering and absorption of both solar and thermal radiation; however, the net contribution of dust to radiative forcing remains quite uncertain [1]. This depends on the properties of the dust particles such as their size and composition (mineralogy), which in turn are related to their origin and to any changes they undergo (e.g., mixing) during their transport. The characterization of dust properties is therefore very important and requires the observation of its optical and microphysical properties across the atmospheric column using remote sensing techniques [2].The present study focuses on the Mediterranean region, one of the major climate change hotspots globally. Its proximity to the most important sources of dust on the planet (i.e., Sahara Desert and Middle East) results in frequent dust episodes throughout the year. The Italian peninsula offers an advantage for such studies due to its central location within the Mediterranean basin and the extensive network of stations that hosts, which carry out systematic measurements of aerosol properties [3]. In this study, we used quality assured (level 2.0) AERONET data [4] from the last twenty years and, by applying aerosol typing methods, we identified dust outbreaks that affected several AERONET sites across the country. Then, we used dust-related profiles retrieved from EARLINET/ACTRIS observations [5, 6] and the MONARCH dust reanalysis [7] to detect the dust layers over the stations, and we estimated the origin and route of the air mass from the back trajectories of the HYSPLIT model [8]. Finally, we investigated how the dust optical and microphysical properties differ depending on the source of origin and the transport route.&#160;&#160;Acknowledgements The CNR-IMAA co-authors acknowledge the IR0000032 &#8211; ITINERIS, Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructures System (D.D. n. 130/2022 - CUP B53C22002150006) funded by EU - Next Generation EU PNRR- Mission 4 &#8220;Education and Research&#8221; - Component 2: &#8220;From research to business&#8221; - Investment 3.1: &#8220;Fund for the realisation of an integrated system of research and innovation infrastructures&#8221;.They also acknowledge the ACTRIS-IT (Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure - Italian contribution) funded by the MUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research).The authors acknowledge the Action Harmonia CA21119 supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).&#160;&#160;References[1] Myhre et al., https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.018, 2013[2] Mona et al., https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0005.1, 2023[3] https://itineris.cnr.it/[4] https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/[5] https://www.earlinet.org/[6] https://www.actris.eu/[7] Di Tomaso et al., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2785-2022, 2022[8] https://www.ready.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php