Abstract
The capabilities of different Earth Observation multispectral satellites are employed for detecting and tracking of desert dust coming from North Africa toward the Northern Italy area and for evaluating the impact of Saharan dust deposition in inland waters, such as those of Lake Garda. Absorbing and scattering spectral optical properties of desert aerosol in the atmospheric windows in the ultraviolet, visible-near-infrared, and infrared spectral ranges are exploited in the dust retrieval performed by OMI/Aura, MODIS/Terra-Aqua, and SEVIRI/MSG satellite sensors. Therefore, the direct link between dust deposition and increase in phytoplankton abundance has been assessed retrieving MERIS-based chlorophyll-a (chl-a) concentration for the desert dust events. Estimates of the increased chl-a in the lake have been derived with values in concentration from 30% to 170%. AERONET sun-photometer measurements, gravimetric particulate matter samplings, <italic<in situ</italic< chl-a concentration and surface temperature are employed to select events and assess the presence of desert dust and recognize a corresponding increase of the phytoplankton abundance in the analyzed inland waters. The improved observational features that will be provided by the next European Sentinels missions, namely Sentinel-2, 3, 4, 5P, together with MTG-I (Imager) and MTG-S (Sounder) will allow better monitoring atmospheric constituents and studying the environmental impacts of desert dust transport.
Highlights
Aerosol particles play an important role in atmospheric processes affecting climate, air quality, rain formation, biogeochemical cycles, representing a challenging subject of analysis in climate research, weather forecast, and, in particular, in the remote sensing retrieval of surface properties
This study has been focused on Lake Garda but for taking into account desert dust transport events, which are characterized by typical large geographical pattern, in situ data have been collected on a wider area (Fig. 1): from Bormio (46.5°N; 10.4°E) to Modena (44.6°N; 10.9° E), in the north–south direction, and from Ispra (45.8°N; 8.6°E) to Venice (45.4°N; 12.3°E) in west–east direction
The findings of the analysis presented in this work outlined the capabilities of multispectral and multisensors satellite data to trace desert aerosol transport and the response of phytoplankton in lake waters
Summary
Aerosol particles play an important role in atmospheric processes affecting climate, air quality, rain formation, biogeochemical cycles, representing a challenging subject of analysis in climate research, weather forecast, and, in particular, in the remote sensing retrieval of surface properties. Among the various aerosol types, mineral dust can be considered one of the major sources of tropospheric aerosol loading, and it has been extensively studied for its impact on the radiative balance by the absorption and scattering of sunlight[1,2] and on the hydrological cycle by means of their role as cloud condensation nuclei.[3] The optical and physical properties of dust aerosol depend on the different sources and the changes they undergo to during their transport in the atmosphere. Dust aerosols are blown into the atmosphere mainly from arid regions and are subject to long-range transport at an intercontinental scale. Among the main dust transport patterns, it is worth mentioning those from North Africa over the Atlantic Ocean, from Arabian Peninsula toward Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, and from East Asia over the Pacific Ocean.
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