## 1 Introduction
In particular, due to their abundance, mineral DAs act as efficient IN in the atmosphere, ultimately stimulating the formation of cirrus clouds [17]. Specifically, in the eastern Mediterranean, collocated lidar-radar observations have shown a significant presence of mixed-phase clouds formed at the top of dust layers [21]. In general, dusty clouds have higher droplet concentrations and smaller droplet sizes compared to pristine clouds [22]. This increases cloud reflectivity and lifetime while reducing the cloud precipitation efficiency. Such an inhibition of precipitation due to dust was confirmed in the eastern Mediterranean using satellite and aircraft observations [23]. In contrast, an increased concentration of large dustparticles may act as efficient water vapor condensers and drop/crystal accumulators, thus promoting the formation of precipitation [24; 25]. Ice latent heat increases the buoyancy and vertical velocities and thus the vertical extent of clouds [26]. From the above, it is clear that DAs are not only a very important climate factor but also a complex and uncertain one. These complications and uncertainties are associated with the simultaneous dust-radiation and dust-cloud interactions, which may have contrasting effects on cloud and precipitation formation (e.g., on the development of mesoscale convective systems in North Africa [27]). The uncertainty of DAs in climate prediction is partly caused by their variable composition and their mixing with other substances in the atmosphere, which results in variable physical and optical properties, as well as by their high spatial and temporal variability. In addition, as described before, DAs interact with clouds through many different processes depending on DA age (e.g., fresh or aged DA) and cloud conditions (e.g., cloud droplet concentrations, relative humidity). In some cases, multiple processes are activated, while different processes compete with each other. Another uncertainty factor of DAs, cited in the last IPCC review [28], is the quantification of the response of dust emission to climate change, since it is sensitive to changes in climate and land use [28]. Although DA emission does occur at high latitudes, such as in Alaska or New Zealand [29; 30], it mainly takes place over the world's arid and semi-arid regions [31; 32]. Moreover, the smaller dust particles emitted into the atmosphere above desert areas, under favorable atmospheric conditions, rise to upper atmospheric levels, from where they can travel long horizontal distances driven by atmospheric circulation. Characteristic examples of DA transport are those taking place from Asian deserts to northern China and the Pacific Ocean [33; 34] and from N. African deserts to the Tropical Atlantic Ocean [33; 35; 36; 37], Gulf of Guinea [38], and Mediterranean Basin (MB) [39; 40; 41; 42; 43]. The MB, due to its proximity to the world's greatest deserts of N. Africa and the Middle East, is frequently affected by dust transport events. This results in the occurrence of so-called [39] Dust Aerosol Episodes (DAEs), which take place at local (pixel-level) scales over the greater MB. When such DAEs have a great spatial extent during a specific day, this day is called a DAED, and when consecutive DAEDs take place, then the so-called dust aerosol episode cases (DAECs) occur, which are spatiotemporally extended/intense dust episodes. The Mediterranean DAEs take place all year round, driven by favorable atmospheric circulation [44], with the maximum frequency of occurrence in spring and summer [39; 40]. When such episodes take place, they perturb the regional energy budget [8; 45; 46], cloud regime [47; 48; 49], and atmospheric temperature structure [50]. All these effects, which are very important to the MB weather and climate, deserve to be further studied at the highest possible temporal and spatial resolution using state-of-the-art tools that should be thoroughly evaluated.