## 3 Results
### Comparison with XMed-Dry Measurements  
In Table 5 the sampling periods are shown in the sampling site of Lecce (sample code: LES), San Lawrenz-Gozo (sample code: SLS) and Athens (sample code: ATS). The sampling periods, from 11 April to 16 April, covered the dust intrusion as can be verified by the presence of dust in the samples. In Table 6, for each XMed-Dry investigated sample, it is reported the dust deposition rates by classification with the respective confidence intervals, total deposition rates and non-dust fraction. Dust and total deposition rates as well as the non-dust fraction have  
Figure 3: Time Averaged Map (14–16 April) of Combined Dark Target and Deep Blue AOD at 0.55 micron for land and ocean. MODIS-Terra MOD08_D3 v6.1 merged with MODIS-Aqua MYD08_D3 v6.1. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Sampling Site**} & **Start Sampling** & **End Sampling** \\  & **YYYY-MM-DD UTC** & **YYYY-MM-DD UTC** \\ \hline LES\_125 & 2018-04-11 10:10 & 2018-04-13 12:10 \\ \hline LES\_126 & 2018-04-13 12:25 & 2018-04-11 11:35 \\ \hline SLS\_148 & 2018-04-11 18:20 & 2018-04-13 17:20 \\ \hline SLS\_149 & 2018-04-13 17:30 & 2018-04-15 10:15 \\ \hline ATS\_137 & 2018-04-11 13:30 & 2018-04-13 12:20 \\ \hline ATS\_138 & 2018-04-13 12:25 & 2018-04-16 12:25 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Start/end of sampling period for each respective sampling site: namely Lecce (sample code: LES), San Lawrenz-Gozo (sample code: SLS), and Athens (sample code: ATS). been obtained for particles which estimated volume-equivalent diameters range between 0.625 and 10 \(\upmu\)m. In the last column of the Table 6 we have reported the average PM\({}_{10}\) concentration (obtained by daily values shown in Tables 7-9) for the investigated periods. Details of measurements are already described in paragraph 2.1.1. The deposition rate of the WRF-Chem model is calculated by considering the gravitational settling (GRASET_# variable) and the dust dry deposition for each size bins (DRYDEP_# variable) and summing all bins as depicted in the following Equation (3):  
\[\text{dep\_rate}=\sum_{\text{i}}(\text{GRASET}_{\text{i}}+\text{DRYDEP}_{ \text{i}}) \tag{3}\] \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Sampling**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Run\_2**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Run\_3**} & **Measured Dust** & **Measured Total** & **Non-Dust** & **PM\({}_{10}\) Average** \\
**Site** & & & **(mg m\({}^{-2}\)day\({}^{-1}\))** & **(mg m\({}^{-2}\)day\({}^{-1}\))** & **(mg m\({}^{-2}\)day\({}^{-1}\))** & **(mg m\({}^{-2}\)day\({}^{-1}\))** & **(\(\text{\bf{\small{}}}\)**)** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{LES\_125} & \multirow{2}{*}{3.2} & \multirow{2}{*}{10.8} & 3.32 & \multirow{2}{*}{3.5} & \multirow{2}{*}{0.05} & \multirow{2}{*}{33.8} \\  & & & & & \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{LES\_126} & \multirow{2}{*}{4.2} & \multirow{2}{*}{11.3} & 7.70 & \multirow{2}{*}{8.1} & \multirow{2}{*}{0.05} & \multirow{2}{*}{74.2} \\  & & & & & \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{SLS\_148} & \multirow{2}{*}{1.7} & \multirow{2}{*}{2.9} & 10.51 & \multirow{2}{*}{11.6} & \multirow{2}{*}{0.09} & \multirow{2}{*}{50.5} \\  & & & & & \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{SLS\_149} & \multirow{2}{*}{4.1} & \multirow{2}{*}{16.7} & 8.83 & \multirow{2}{*}{17.3} & \multirow{2}{*}{0.49} & \multirow{2}{*}{83.4} \\  & & & & & \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{ATS\_137} & \multirow{2}{*}{1.7} & \multirow{2}{*}{6.7} & 2.29 & \multirow{2}{*}{2.3} & \multirow{2}{*}{0.01} & \multirow{2}{*}{31.75} \\  & & & & & \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{ATS\_138} & \multirow{2}{*}{5.5} & \multirow{2}{*}{14.5} & 2.58 & \multirow{2}{*}{2.6} & \multirow{2}{*}{0.01} & \multirow{2}{*}{37.95} \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{Average} & \multirow{2}{*}{2.5} & \multirow{2}{*}{10.5} & 5.9 & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 6: Simulated (run_2, run_3) and measured dry deposition rates at the three sampling locations.