The mysterious long-range transport of giant mineral dust particles

Michèlle van der Does; Peter Knippertz; Philipp Zschenderlein; R. Giles Harrison; Jan Berend W. Stuut

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau2768

The mysterious long-range transport of giant mineral dust particles

Michèlle van der Does^*, Peter Knippertz, Philipp Zschenderlein, R. Giles Harrison, Jan Berend W. Stuut

^*Corresponding author for this work

Earth and Climate

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Giant mineral dust particles (>75 mm in diameter) found far from their source have long puzzled scientists. These wind-blown particles affect the atmosphere’s radiation balance, clouds, and the ocean carbon cycle but are generally ignored in models. Here, we report new observations of individual giant Saharan dust particles of up to 450 mm in diameter sampled in air over the Atlantic Ocean at 2400 and 3500 km from the west African coast. Past research points to fast horizontal transport, turbulence, uplift in convective systems, and electrical levitation of particles as possible explanations for this fascinating phenomenon. We present a critical assessment of these mechanisms and propose several lines of research we deem promising to further advance our understanding and modeling.

Original language	English
Article number	eaau2768
Pages (from-to)	1-9
Number of pages	9
Journal	Science advances
Volume	4
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau2768
Publication status	Published - 12 Dec 2018

Funding

The captains, crews, and scientists of RV Pelagia cruises 64PE378 and 64PE395, RRS James Cook cruise JC134, and NIOZ technicians are thanked for deployment and retrieval of the dust-collecting buoys. We thank J. Fyfe and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments that helped improve this manuscript. This project was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO; project no. 822.01.008, TRAFFIC) and the European Research Council (ERC; project no. 311152, DUSTTRAFFIC), both awarded to J.-B.W.S. P.Z. is funded through subproject C4 “Coupling of planetary-scale Rossby wave trains to local extremes in heat waves” of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center SFB/TRR 165 “Waves to Weather,” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Funders	Funder number
Racing Victoria	64PE378, 64PE395
Seventh Framework Programme	311152
European Research Council
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	822.01.008

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The mysterious long-range transport of giant mineral dust particles

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