The emphasis was on the following topics: Characterization of dust properties Interest is growing in the long-range transport of dust on a global scale and the overall impact of dust on climate. The largest dust sources are located in the northern hemisphere with the major contributors being the Sahara and Sahel regions in North Africa that emit between 60-200 millions of tons of dust per year. Every year, large amounts of African dust are transported by the trade winds over vast areas of the North Atlantic to the Americas (specifically the Caribbean, southeastern USA, Central America, and South America, e.g., Amazon basin). These dust particles influence the Earth’s radiative budget directly by scattering and absorbing solar radiation in the atmosphere and indirectly by affecting cloud formation and, thus, cloud albedo. The underlying physico-chemical processes of dust-aerosol interactions are still poorly, understood especially how particle aging impacts cloud properties and climate as they travel from Africa over the North Atlantic to the Americas. This is especially true for the under-studied Caribbean, a region heavily influenced by trade winds and hurricane storm tracks that play a crucial role in the global climate by serving as an atmospheric conduit between tropical and extra-tropical regions and have frequent input of long-range transport of African dust. |
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