Detection of mineral dust over the North Atlantic Ocean and Africa with the Nimbus 7 TOMS

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dc.contributor.authorChiapello, I.
dc.contributor.authorProspero, J. M.
dc.contributor.authorHerman, Jay
dc.contributor.authorHsu, N. C.
dc.date.accessioned2023-07-06T21:31:52Z
dc.date.available2023-07-06T21:31:52Z
dc.date.issued1999-04-01
dc.description.abstractIt has recently been found that the ultraviolet measurements obtained with the Nimbus 7 total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) instrument can be used to retrieve information on the distribution of aerosols over oceanic and continental surfaces. Here we examine the use of the derived TOMS aerosol index (AI) for the detection of absorbing aerosol in terms of mineral dust aerosol over the North Atlantic Ocean and North Africa. Specifically, we compare the TOMS AI with the time series of daily aerosol measurements made in the boundary layer at Sal Island (Cape Verde), Barbados, and Miami and in the free troposphere on Tenerife (Canary Islands); these sites are frequently impacted by African dust events. At Tenerife, over the time period 1988–1992, TOMS detected 80% of the African dust events that yielded daily average dust concentrations greater than 20 μg m⁻³; at Barbados and Miami, TOMS detected 65% and 44% respectively of the events over the period 1979–1992. If we exclude events during which some of the TOMS data are missing and also short (1-day) dust events, TOMS detected 99% of the events at Tenerife, 97% at Barbados, and 81% at Miami. TOMS was also successful in detecting the “low altitude” African dust events recorded at Sal during the winter season. Over Africa we compare the TOMS AI data with ground-based measurements of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) obtained during field experiments in Senegal and Niger; these yield a nearly linear relationship between the TOMS AI and the AOT. Discrepancies between ground-based measurements (in terms of dust concentrations or AOT) and TOMS AI can be attributed to a number of factors: variations in the physical properties of the aerosol; the sensitivity of the TOMS response to the altitude of the aerosol layer; or the coarse spatial resolution of the TOMS pixel. Nonetheless, our results clearly show that the TOMS AI provides a remarkably accurate picture of mineral dust distributions in the atmosphere over both continental and oceanic regions.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipWe thank Didier Tanr6 for providing the AOT measurements from field experiments in Senegal and Niger, Richard Arimoto for providing the aerosol data from Tenerife, and Miguel Izaguirre for programing support. This work was supported by NASA contract NAG54020 and by NSF grants ATM9414846 and ATM9414808 in support of the AEROCE program.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/1998JD200083en_US
dc.format.extent15 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2o14m-of36
dc.identifier.citationChiapello, I., Prospero, J. M., Herman, J. R., and Hsu, N. C. (1999), Detection of mineral dust over the North Atlantic Ocean and Africa with the Nimbus 7 TOMS, J. Geophys. Res., 104( D8), 9277– 9291, doi:10.1029/1998JD200083.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1029/1998JD200083
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/28426
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherAGUen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC GESTAR II Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET)
dc.rightsThis work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.en_US
dc.rightsPublic Domain Mark 1.0*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/*
dc.titleDetection of mineral dust over the North Atlantic Ocean and Africa with the Nimbus 7 TOMSen_US
dc.title.alternativeNIMBUS-7/TOMS detection of mineral dust over the north Africa and the eastern north Atlantic Oceanen_US
dc.typeTexten_US
dcterms.creatorhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9146-1632en_US

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