## 4 Summary and Conclusions
The following supporting information can be downloaded at: [[https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13126878/s1](https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13126878/s1)]([https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13126878/s1](https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app13126878/s1)), Figure S1: The geographical distribution of 31 AERONET stations in the wider Mediterranean area providing data during the DAEC period (16-18 June 2016) and used for the evaluation of the MERRA-2 aerosol optical depth and single scattering albedo; Figure S2: The geographical distribution of 7 BSRN stations in the wider Mediterranean area providing data during the DAEC period (16-18 June 2016). Their short names are shown along with their locations (pal: Palaiseau, pay: Payerne, car: Carpentras, son: Sonnblick, crn: Cener, tam: Tamanrasset, iza: Izaña); Figure S3: (a) Scatter plot comparison between AOD50 nm from MERRA-2 and AERONET, (b) Time-series of hourly AOD values averaged over the 31 Mediterranean AERONET stations (blue) and corresponding MERRA-2 AODs (red) from grids containing the AERONET sites; Figure S4: Scatter plot comparison between SSA of MERRA-2 and AERONET over the 8 stations during 16-18 June 2016; Figure S5: Scatter plot comparison between SSR fluxes (W/m\({}^{2}\)) of FORTH RTM and BSRN (i-a) and OSR fluxes (W/m\({}^{2}\)) of FORTH RTM and CERES (i-b). The different colors in (i-a) indicate the different (7, see Figure 1) stations and the statistical metrics and linear regression fit line are also shown. Also, (ii-a) shows the average (for the 7 stations) 3-hourly SSR fluxes (W/m\({}^{2}\)) for FORTH RTM (red) and BSRN (blue) sites during 16-18 June 2016, while (ii-b) shows the 3-hourly average (for the entire study region) OSR fluxes (W/m\({}^{2}\)) for FORTH (red) and CERES (blue) sites; Figure S6: Scatter plot comparison between OSR fluxes (W/m\({}^{2}\)) of FORTH RTM and CERES (a) over the 7 BSRN stations during 16-18 June 2016. Also, (b) shows the average 3-hourly OSR fluxes (W/m\({}^{2}\)) for FORTH RTM (red) and CERES (blue) over the BSRN sites; Figure S7: Geographical distribution of ISCCP-H cloud amount for liquid (left column) and ice (right column) phase clouds during the day before (first row, a), and the first (second row, b), second (third row, c), third (fourth row, d) and the day after (fifth row, e) the DAEC that took place during 16-18 June 2016 over the Mediterranean Basin. Results are given at 12:00 UTC of each day; Figure S8: Geographical distribution of ISCCP-H cloud top pressure in hPa (left column, i), cloud top temperature in K (middle column, ii) and cloud optical depth (right column, iii) during the day before (first row, a), and the first (second row, b), second (third row, c), third (fourth row, d) and the day after (fifth row, e) the DAEC that took place during 16-18 June 2016 over the Mediterranean Basin. Results are given at 12:00 UTC of each day; Figure S9: Geographical distribution of MERRA-2 SSA (left column) and AP (right column) during the day before (first row, a), the first (second row, b), the second (third row, c), the third (fourth row, d) and the day after (fifth row, e) of the dust episode that took place during 16-18 June 2016 over the Mediterranean Basin.