Abstract
Dust deposition rates derived from optical satellite observations
Highlights
Desert dust outflows off the West African coast impact offshore biogeochemical processes and can be regarded as natural hazards to human activities and ecosystems
Standard remote sensing techniques of dust are based on the physical principle of extraterrestial sunlight travelling through the Earth’s atmosphere and being attenuated by suspended dust particles
The amount of sunlight reflected back to space and allow us to determine the degree of sunlight attenuation. The latter is described by Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT), which is defined as the extinction coefficient of light integrated over a vertical column through the atmosphere
Summary
Desert dust (or dust aerosol) outflows off the West African coast impact offshore biogeochemical processes and can be regarded as natural hazards to human activities and ecosystems. AOT can be calculated from data of reflected light with algorithms like the Bremen AErosol Retrieval (BAER; von HoyningenHuene et al 2003, 2011) and monitored both in space and time. From optical thickness to dust deposition Comparisons of satellite-derived AOT and data from sediment traps over West Africa and the Northern Atlantic do not show a direct relationship between atmospheric dust loading and dust accumulation.
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