First Mapping of Monthly and Diurnal Climatology of Saharan Dust Layer Height Over the Atlantic Ocean From EPIC/DSCOVR in Deep Space

Abstract

The monthly and hourly climatology of Saharan dust layer height over the Atlantic, at a spatial resolution of ∼10 km, is obtained for the first time, via a passive remote sensing technique. The technique is applied to multiple years of Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) data collected at the Lagrange-1 point, generating a climate data record (CDR) of aerosol optical centroid height (AOCH). This CDR offers unprecedented spatial coverage and diurnal sampling compared to spaceborne lidars (CALIOP and CATS). Our results show high correspondence with CALIOP data in domain-averaged monthly variations and with CATS data in diurnal variations, respectively. A principal component analysis (PCA) reveals the dominant role of dust transport in regulating AOCH variation, whereas the impact of the boundary layer is less significant. MERRA-2 and satellite retrievals respectively display zero and 200–1,000 m of diurnal variation of AOCH, highlighting the uniqueness of EPIC AOCH CDR in constraining climate models