Remote sensing characterization of dust plumes

The microphysical properties of dust plumes show variations during their aging processes. To better understand the impact of dust plume evolution on the climate, particularly on regional scales, it is necessary to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions of the dust plumes. This study focuses on characterizing the dust plumes using satellite remote sensing measurements. Three collocated data sets from MODIS, CALIPSO, and PARASOL are utilized in this study. Dust plumes initiated in northern Africa and Gobi desert of Asia are studied.

The observations made by CALIPSO and PARASOL are capable of measuring the depolarization associated with scattering from nonspherical particles. Dust particles are nonspherical and the degree of the nonsphericity may change during their lifetime in the atmosphere. The ultimate goal of this effort is to understand the impact of dust aerosol aging process on the optical properties of these particles. The sensitivity of the depolarization ratio measured by CALIPSO Lidar and Mueller matrix elements (I, Q, and U) measured by PARASOL polarized imager to the aging process is investigated.