Predicting the mineral composition of dust aerosols: Insights from elemental composition measured at the Izana Observatory.

ABSTRACT: Regional variations of dust mineral composition are fundamental to climate impacts but generally neglected in climate models. A challenge for models is that atlases of soil composition are derived from measurements following wet sieving, which destroys the aggregates potentially emitted from the soil. Aggregates are crucial to simulating the observed size distribution of emitted soil particles. We use an extension of brittle fragmentation theory in a global dust model to account for these aggregates. Our method reproduces the size-resolved dust concentration along with the approximately size-invariant fractional abundance of elements like Fe and Al in the decade-long aerosol record from the Izaña Observatory, off the coast of West Africa. By distinguishing between Fe in structural and free

SUBMITTER: Garcia-Pando CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7370996 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature