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Mineral Dust: Sources, Atmospheric Processing and Impacts
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Mineral Dust: Sources, Atmospheric Processing and Impacts

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2018) | Viewed by 18735

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. David Cappelletti

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Guest Editor
Dipartimento Di Chimica, Biologia e Biotecnologie, Università Degli Studi di Perugia, Via Elce Di Sotto 8, 06123 Perugia, Italy
Interests: elementary processes in the gas phase; molecular clusters; chemical and physical characterization of atmospheric aerosols; remote environments; vertical profiles of aerosol properties; aerosol source apportionment; chemical transport models
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Airborne mineral dust is a primary natural aerosol and an essential component of biogeochemical processes. Dust particles enter the atmosphere primarily by wind erosion and suspension of exposed soils and can be transported for long distances from continent to continent and across oceans. Natural dust is often associated with hot, subtropical deserts, but significant dust events have been reported from cold, high latitudes. Source of mineral dust originating at high latitudes are important and expected to increase due to the enlargement of deglaciated areas in the Northern hemisphere.

The impact of dust in the atmosphere is mainly related to its optical properties. Once transported to receptor sites, dust may affect human health as well as the natural ecosystems. The impacts depend on particle physical characteristics, geochemistry, atmospheric processing and co-presence of anthropogenic pollutants and eventually biogenic particles. Even if Saharan dust is classified as a natural aerosol, it affects human health as much as anthropogenic aerosol due to the high mass concentrations during the intrusion events. Mass concentration is not the only factor: persistent pollutants and bacteria associated with the same air mass can impact the human health as well. Furthermore, mineral dust can be deposited on snow and ice and affect the albedo of the cryosphere. Also, alien bacteria caught at dust source regions can survive the long-range travel and colonize remote ecosystems, such as mountains and possibly polar environments.

The characterization of novel dust sources, atmospheric processing, the presence of anthropogenic pollutants as well as the characteristics of the bacterial community transported with the dust and their relationships with chemistry are challenging subjects and represent the targets of the present Special Issue.

Prof. David Cappelletti
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • dust sources
  • atmospheric transport and processing
  • dust deposition
  • dust optical properties
  • health impacts
  • bacterial diversity

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2204 KiB  
Article
Modeling Dust Direct Radiative Feedbacks in East Asia During the Last Glacial Maximum
by Xugeng Cheng, Xiaoning Xie, Zhengguo Shi, Xinzhou Li, Tianliang Zhao and Xiaodong Liu
Atmosphere 2019, 10(3), 146; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10030146 - 18 Mar 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2778
Abstract
In this study, using the fourth version of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM4) with a bulk aerosol model parameterization (BAM) for dust size distribution (CAM4-BAM), East Asian dust and its direct radiative feedbacks (DRF) during the Last Glacial Maximum are analyzed by intercomparing [...] Read more.
In this study, using the fourth version of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM4) with a bulk aerosol model parameterization (BAM) for dust size distribution (CAM4-BAM), East Asian dust and its direct radiative feedbacks (DRF) during the Last Glacial Maximum are analyzed by intercomparing results between the experiments with (Active) and without (Passive) the DRF. This CAM4-BAM captures the expected characteristics that the dust aerosol optical depth and loading over East Asia during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) were significantly greater compared to the current climate. A comparative analysis of the Active and Passive experiments reveals that consideration of the dust–radiation interaction can significantly reduce dust emissions and then weaken the whole dust cycle, including loading, transport, and dry and wet depositions over East Asia. Further analysis of the dust–radiation feedback shows that the DRF decreases surface sensible heat, mainly owing to the negative surface forcing induced by dust with a value of −11.8 W m−2. The decreased surface sensible heat weakens the turbulent energy within the planetary boundary layer and the surface wind speed, and then reduces the regional dust emissions. This process creates a negative DRF–emission feedback loop to affect the dust cycle during the LGM. Further analysis reveals that the dust emissions in the LGM over East Asia were more reduced, with amounts of −77.2 Tg season−1 by the negative DRF–emission feedback, compared to the current climate with −6.8 Tg season−1. The two ratios of this reduction to their emissions are close to −10.7% for the LGM and −7.5% for the current climate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mineral Dust: Sources, Atmospheric Processing and Impacts)
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15 pages, 2598 KiB  
Article
Characteristics of Aerosol Chemical Compositions and Size Distributions during a Long-Range Dust Transport Episode in an Urban City in the Yangtze River Delta
by Zhengxu Gao, Xiaoling Wang, Lijuan Shen, Hua Xiang and Honglei Wang
Atmosphere 2019, 10(2), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10020068 - 06 Feb 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3204
Abstract
A long- and large-range heavy dust episode occurred from 3 to 8 May 2017 in China. To explore the impacts of this long-range dust transport episode on the chemical compositions and size distributions of urban aerosols, such instruments as an online analyzer for [...] Read more.
A long- and large-range heavy dust episode occurred from 3 to 8 May 2017 in China. To explore the impacts of this long-range dust transport episode on the chemical compositions and size distributions of urban aerosols, such instruments as an online analyzer for monitoring aerosols and gases (MARGA) and a wide-range particle spectrometer (WPS) were mainly used to monitor chemical components, such as PM2.5 and aerosol size distributions in the range of 10 nm to 10 μm, in Nanjing in this study. During the dust episode, the average concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 and ions of Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl−, SO42−, NO3−, and NH4+ were 66.2, 233.9, and 1.1, 1.5, 1.1, 11.4, 7.8 and 4.4 μg·m−3, which were 4.4, 5.8, 3.7, 15, 1.38, 1.84, 1.66 and 1.83 times higher than the values observed before the episode and 2.2, 3.3, 5.5, 5.0, 1.57, 1.97, 1.39 and 1.69 times the levels after the episode. The dusts were demonstrated to have differential impacts on the water-soluble gases in the air. During the dust episode, the concentrations of HCl, SO2 and NH3 were comparably low, while the HNO2 and HNO3 concentrations were high. The diurnal variations in pollutants, including SO2, HNO3, Cl−, Ca2+, Mg2+, PM2.5 and PM10, were strongly impacted by the dust episode. However, those variations in NH3, NO3−, SO42− and NH4+ were only slightly influenced. Pollutants were distinctively featured in the various dust stages. The concentration of HNO2 was relatively high in the earliest stage but was substituted by those of SO2, PM10, PM2.5, Ca2+, Mg2+ HNO3 and Cl− in the explosion stage. The aerosol number concentrations exhibited unimodal distributions in the earliest and explosion stages but showed bimodal distributions in the duration and dissipation stages. Additionally, the aerosol size distributions were observed to shift to larger particle segments in different dust stages. The surface area concentrations exhibited four peaks in different dust stages and exhibited trimodal distributions in the non-dust episode. The surface area concentration of fine particles first increased during the earliest stage, while that of coarse particles first decreased during the dissipation stage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mineral Dust: Sources, Atmospheric Processing and Impacts)
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15 pages, 748 KiB  
Article
Iron Speciation of Natural and Anthropogenic Dust by Spectroscopic and Chemical Methods
by Chiara Petroselli, Beatrice Moroni, Stefano Crocchianti, Roberta Selvaggi, Riccardo Vivani, Francesco Soggia, Marco Grotti, Francesco D’Acapito and David Cappelletti
Atmosphere 2019, 10(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10010008 - 29 Dec 2018
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3347
Abstract
In this work, we have characterized the iron local structure in samples of two different types of atmospheric dust using X-ray absorption spectroscopy and selective leaching experiments. Specifically, we have investigated samples of long-range transported Saharan dust and freshly emitted steel plant fumes [...] Read more.
In this work, we have characterized the iron local structure in samples of two different types of atmospheric dust using X-ray absorption spectroscopy and selective leaching experiments. Specifically, we have investigated samples of long-range transported Saharan dust and freshly emitted steel plant fumes with the aim of individuating possible fingerprints of iron in the two cases. Findings include (1) prevalence of octahedral coordinated Fe 3 + for all samples; (2) presence of 6-fold coordinated Fe 3 + , aluminosilicates and iron oxy(hydr)oxides in Saharan dust and (3) of Fe-bearing spinel-like structures in the industrial fumes; (4) general predominance of the residual insoluble fraction with a notable difference: 69% for Saharan dust and 93% for steel production emissions, associated with aluminosilicates and non-reducible iron oxy(hydr)oxides, and Fe spinels, respectively. The remarkable differences between the X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) spectra and leaching test results for the two sample types suggest the possibility to exploit the present approach in more complex cases. To this aim, two additional case studies of mixed aerosol samples are presented and discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mineral Dust: Sources, Atmospheric Processing and Impacts)
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20 pages, 8214 KiB  
Article
From Tropospheric Folding to Khamsin and Foehn Winds: How Atmospheric Dynamics Advanced a Record-Breaking Dust Episode in Crete
by Stavros Solomos, Nikos Kalivitis, Nikos Mihalopoulos, Vassilis Amiridis, Giorgos Kouvarakis, Antonis Gkikas, Ioannis Binietoglou, Alexandra Tsekeri, Stelios Kazadzis, Michael Kottas, Yaswant Pradhan, Emmanouil Proestakis, Panagiotis T. Nastos and Franco Marenco
Atmosphere 2018, 9(7), 240; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9070240 - 24 Jun 2018
Cited by 49 | Viewed by 7823
Abstract
A record-breaking dust episode took place in Crete on 22 March 2018. The event was characterized by surface concentrations exceeding 1 mg m−3 for a period of 4–7 h, reaching record values higher than 6 mg m−3 at the background station [...] Read more.
A record-breaking dust episode took place in Crete on 22 March 2018. The event was characterized by surface concentrations exceeding 1 mg m−3 for a period of 4–7 h, reaching record values higher than 6 mg m−3 at the background station of Finokalia. We present here a detailed analysis of the atmospheric dynamical processes during this period, to identify the main reasons for such extreme dust advection over Crete. At the synoptic scale, the weakening of the polar vortex and the meridional transport of polar air masses at upper tropospheric layers resulted in a strong jet streak over north Africa and Central Mediterranean and corresponding tropospheric folding that brought cold stratospheric air in mid and upper troposphere. Cyclogenesis occurred at the Gulf of Sirte in Libya, resulting in strong winds over the north-east parts of Libya, enhancing particle emissions. The dust plume traveled at low altitude (0.5–3 km) along the warm conveyor belt preceding the depression cold front. This type of dusty southerly wind is commonly known as “Khamsin”. As the flow approached Crete, Foehn winds at the lee side of the island favored the downward mixing of dust towards the surface, resulting in local maxima of PM10 in Heraklion and Finokalia. The analysis is based on the combination of high-resolution WRF-Chem simulations reaching up to 1 × 1 km grid space over Crete, ground-based and satellite remote sensing of the dust plumes (PollyXT LiDAR, MSG-SEVIRI, MODIS) and detailed surface aerosol in situ measurements at urban (Heraklion, Chania, Greece) and background (Finokalia) stations in Crete. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mineral Dust: Sources, Atmospheric Processing and Impacts)
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