Application of hyperspectral remote sensing in the longwave infrared region technology for assessing the influence of settled desert dust particles on soil surface

Author(s):  
Eyal Ben Dor ◽  
Gila Notesko ◽  
Shahar Weksler

<p>Soil mineralogy holds important information on the soil origin and development. Most common minerals in soils—quartz, clay minerals and carbonates—present fundamental spectral features in the longwave infrared (LWIR) region (8.0–12 μm range), whereas quartz is featureless in the optical region (0.4–2.5 μm range). A procedure for determining the soil surface mineralogy from hyperspectral LWIR data was used to assess the interaction with desert dust particles that accumulate on the soil surface during dust storms. Ground- and field-based hyperspectral LWIR images of different types of Israeli soils, before and after dispersion of desert dust-like material on the surface, were acquired with the Telops Hyper-Cam sensor, to calculate the surface emissivity spectra of soils, representing the surface mineralogy. Identifying mineral-related emissivity features and calculating their relative intensities, using two created indices―SQCMI (Soil Quartz Clay Mineral Index) and SCI (Soil Carbonate Index)―enabled determining the content of quartz, clay minerals, and carbonates in the soil in a semi-quantitative manner—from more to less abundant, and identifying changes in their abundance resulting from the dispersion of dust on the surface. The dust affected the mineral-related spectral features of the soil surface, depending on the mineral composition of the dust compared to soil surface mineralogy, and its amount. The ability to detect minor mineralogical changes on the soil surface using high spectral resolution LWIR data was demonstrated.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1388
Author(s):  
Gila Notesco ◽  
Shahar Weksler ◽  
Eyal Ben-Dor

Soil mineralogy can be used to study changes in the environment affecting the soil surface, such as dust from the desert through Aeolian processes, which is one of the sources that determine the mineral nature of the soil. Ground- and field-based hyperspectral longwave infrared images, acquired before and after dust dispersion on the soil surface, were processed and analyzed by applying a procedure for determining soil surface mineralogy from the emissivity spectrum, using two indices―SQCMI (the Soil Quartz Clay Mineral Index) and SCI (the Soil Carbonate Index)―to identify changes in the abundance of quartz, clay minerals and carbonates on the surface, caused by the settling dust particles. Mineralogical changes were identified, depending on the mineral composition of the dust compared to the soil surface mineralogy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (23) ◽  
pp. 15075-15095 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Boose ◽  
André Welti ◽  
James Atkinson ◽  
Fabiola Ramelli ◽  
Anja Danielczok ◽  
...  

Abstract. Desert dust is one of the most abundant ice nucleating particle types in the atmosphere. Traditionally, clay minerals were assumed to determine the ice nucleation ability of desert dust and constituted the focus of ice nucleation studies over several decades. Recently some feldspar species were identified to be ice active at much higher temperatures than clay minerals, redirecting studies to investigate the contribution of feldspar to ice nucleation on desert dust. However, so far no study has shown the atmospheric relevance of this mineral phase.For this study four dust samples were collected after airborne transport in the troposphere from the Sahara to different locations (Crete, the Peloponnese, Canary Islands, and the Sinai Peninsula). Additionally, 11 dust samples were collected from the surface from nine of the biggest deserts worldwide. The samples were used to study the ice nucleation behavior specific to different desert dusts. Furthermore, we investigated how representative surface-collected dust is for the atmosphere by comparing to the ice nucleation activity of the airborne samples. We used the IMCA-ZINC setup to form droplets on single aerosol particles which were subsequently exposed to temperatures between 233 and 250 K. Dust particles were collected in parallel on filters for offline cold-stage ice nucleation experiments at 253–263 K. To help the interpretation of the ice nucleation experiments the mineralogical composition of the dusts was investigated. We find that a higher ice nucleation activity in a given sample at 253 K can be attributed to the K-feldspar content present in this sample, whereas at temperatures between 238 and 245 K it is attributed to the sum of feldspar and quartz content present. A high clay content, in contrast, is associated with lower ice nucleation activity. This confirms the importance of feldspar above 250 K and the role of quartz and feldspars determining the ice nucleation activities at lower temperatures as found by earlier studies for monomineral dusts. The airborne samples show on average a lower ice nucleation activity than the surface-collected ones. Furthermore, we find that under certain conditions milling can lead to a decrease in the ice nucleation ability of polymineral samples due to the different hardness and cleavage of individual mineral phases causing an increase of minerals with low ice nucleation ability in the atmospherically relevant size fraction. Comparison of our data set to an existing desert dust parameterization confirms its applicability for climate models. Our results suggest that for an improved prediction of the ice nucleation ability of desert dust in the atmosphere, the modeling of emission and atmospheric transport of the feldspar and quartz mineral phases would be key, while other minerals are only of minor importance.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perla Alalam ◽  
Hervé Herbin

<p>Large desert lands such as Sahara, Gobi or Australia present main sources of atmospheric mineral dust caused by intense dust storms. Transported dust particles undergo physical and chemical changes affecting their microphysical and optical properties. This modifies their scattering and absorption properties and alters the global atmospheric radiative budget.</p><p>Currently, remote sensing techniques represent a powerful tool for quantitative atmospheric measurements and the only means of analyzing its evolution from local to global scale. In order to improve the knowledge of atmospheric aerosol distributions, many efforts were made particularly in the development of hyperspectral infrared spectrometers and processing algorithms. However, to fully exploit these measurements, a perfect knowledge of Complex Refractive Index (CRI) is required.</p><p>In that purpose, a new methodology <sup></sup>based on laboratory measurements of mineral dust in suspension coupled with an optimal estimation method has been developed. This approach allows getting access to CRI of several desert samples with various chemical compositions.</p><p>Here, we present the first results of the physical parameters (effective radius and concentration) retrievals using Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer IASI data, during dust storm events. The latter use the CRI of different desert samples obtained in laboratory and a new radiative transfer algorithm (ARAHMIS) developed at Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique LOA.</p>


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Boose ◽  
André Welti ◽  
James Atkinson ◽  
Fabiola Ramelli ◽  
Anja Danielczok ◽  
...  

Abstract. Desert dust is one of the most abundant ice nucleating particle types in the atmosphere. Traditionally, clay minerals were assumed to determine the ice nucleation ability of desert dust and constituted the focus of ice nucleation studies. Only recently some feldspar species were identified to be ice-active at much higher temperatures than clay minerals, redirecting studies to investigate the contribution of feldspar to ice nucleation on desert dust. However, so far no study has shown the atmospheric relevance of this mineral phase. For this study four dust samples were collected after airborne transport in the troposphere from the Sahara to different locations (Crete, the Peloponnese, Canary Islands and the Sinai Peninsula). Additionally, eleven dust samples were collected from the surface from nine of the biggest deserts worldwide. The samples were used to study the ice nucleation behavior specific to different desert dusts. Furthermore we investigated how representative ice nucleation on surface-collected dust is for that in the atmosphere by comparing to the ice nucleation activity of the airborne samples. We used the IMCA-ZINC set-up to form droplets on single aerosol particles which were subsequently exposed to temperatures between 233–250 K. Dust particles were collected in parallel on filters for offline cold stage ice nucleation experiments at 253–263 K. To help the interpretation of the results from the ice nucleation experiments the mineralogical composition of the dusts was investigated. We found that a higher ice nucleation activity in a given sample can be attributed at 253 K to the K-feldspar content present in this sample whereas at temperatures between 238–245 K it is attributed to the sum of feldspar and quartz content present. A high clay content on the other hand is associated with a lower ice nucleation activity of a sample. This confirms the importance of feldspar at T > 250 K and the role of quartz and feldspars determining the ice nucleation activities at lower T as found by earlier studies for monomineral dust surrogates. Furthermore, we find that milling may lead to a decrease in the ice nucleation ability of polymineral samples due to a change in mineralogical composition in the atmospherically relevant size fraction arising from the different hardness and cleavage of individual mineral phases. Comparison of our comprehensive data set to an existing desert dust parameterization confirms its applicability for climate models. Our results suggest that for an improved prediction of the ice nucleation ability of desert dust in the atmosphere, the modelling of emission and atmospheric transport of the feldspar and quartz mineral phases would be key while other minerals are only of minor importance.


Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Li ◽  
Longyi Shao ◽  
Lingli Chang ◽  
Jiaoping Xing ◽  
Wenhua Wang ◽  
...  

Beijing frequently experiences dust storms during spring, which result in deteriorated visibility and cause negative health impacts. In this paper, the dust particles were collected during a dust storm episode on 4–5 May 2017 in Beijing, and the samples before and after the dust storm were also collected. The morphology and elemental and mineralogical compositions of the dust samples were investigated using a transmission electron microscope equipped with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (TEM-EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The TEM-EDX results showed that the particles in the dust samples were mainly Si-rich, Ca-rich, S-rich, Fe-rich, Al-rich, Ti-rich, K-rich, Na-rich and Mg-rich particles. The XRD results demonstrated that the minerals in PM10 samples were mainly clay, calcite, quartz, dolomite, plagioclase, potassium feldspar and hematite, in descending order of their contents. The clay minerals, having the highest content, were mainly kaolinite, chlorite and illite. The mixing state and aging degree of mineral particles before, during and after the dust storm episode behaved very differently. The mineral particles collected before and after the dust storm tended to have an internal mixing state, dominated by the S-rich particles internally mixed with alkaline mineral particles, revealing a more serious ageing degree. The mineral particles collected during the dust storm did not show clear internal mixing, revealing a less serious ageing degree. The amount of the Si-rich, Al-rich, Ca-rich and Ti-rich particles was highest during the dust storm, indicating that these particles mainly originated from long-distance transportation. The S-rich, Fe-rich, K-rich, Na-rich and Mg-rich particles were mainly enriched in the samples before and after the dust storm episode, indicating that they mainly originated from local sources. A comparison of the values of S/(Si + Al) in the individual particles with the particle sizes revealed that the finer mineral particles were associated with higher S contents before and after the dust storm, while the coarse particles were associated with lower S contents during the dust storm.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1785-1799
Author(s):  
Péter Sipos ◽  
Viktória Kovács Kis ◽  
Réka Balázs ◽  
Adrienn Tóth ◽  
Tibor Németh

Abstract Purpose The close association of Fe-oxyhydroxides and clay minerals might influence the sorption properties of these components. We aimed to study the effect of removing the pedogenic Fe-oxyhydroxides on the sorption of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn by the clay mineral particles in soils with contrasting pH. Methods Competitive batch sorption experiments before and after Fe-oxyhydroxide extraction in soils were carried out together with the direct analysis of the metal sorption on individual particles of ferrihydrite, smectite, and illite/smectite by TEM. Results Ferrihydrite was a more effective metal sorbent than clay minerals, although its removal resulted in decreased sorption only for Cd, Cu, and Zn. Ferrhydrite coating blocked metals’ access for certain sorption sites on clay surfaces, which were only accessible for Pb as the most efficient competitor after removing the coating. This observation was the most remarkable for the smectite particles in the alkaline soil. Mineral surfaces sorbed higher Cu than Pb concentrations and higher Zn than Cd concentrations despite the former metals’ lower bulk sorption. Thus, organic surfaces and precipitation contributed to Pb and Cd’s retention to a greater extent than for Cu and Zn. The structural Fe of smectite also promoted the metal sorption in both soils. Conclusion Removal of iron-oxyhydroxide coatings from the soil affects metal sorption selectively. Direct study of metal sorption on individual soil particles enables us to gain a more in-depth insight into soil minerals’ role in this process.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5489-5504 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Spyrou ◽  
G. Kallos ◽  
C. Mitsakou ◽  
P. Athanasiadis ◽  
C. Kalogeri ◽  
...  

Abstract. Mineral dust aerosols exert a significant effect on both solar and terrestrial radiation. By absorbing and scattering, the solar radiation aerosols reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface. In addition, aerosols enhance the greenhouse effect by absorbing and emitting outgoing longwave radiation. Desert dust forcing exhibits large regional and temporal variability due to its short lifetime and diverse optical properties, further complicating the quantification of the direct radiative effect (DRE). The complexity of the links and feedbacks of dust on radiative transfer indicate the need for an integrated approach in order to examine these impacts. In order to examine these feedbacks, the SKIRON limited area model has been upgraded to include the RRTMG (Rapid Radiative Transfer Model – GCM) radiative transfer model that takes into consideration the aerosol radiative effects. It was run for a 6 year period. Two sets of simulations were performed, one without the effects of dust and the other including the radiative feedback. The results were first evaluated using aerosol optical depth data to examine the capabilities of the system in describing the desert dust cycle. Then the aerosol feedback on radiative transfer was quantified and the links between dust and radiation were studied. The study has revealed a strong interaction between dust particles and solar and terrestrial radiation, with several implications on the energy budget of the atmosphere. A profound effect is the increased absorption (in the shortwave and longwave) in the lower troposphere and the induced modification of the atmospheric temperature profile. These feedbacks depend strongly on the spatial distribution of dust and have more profound effects where the number of particles is greater, such as near their source.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (19) ◽  
pp. 14609-14622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zechen Yu ◽  
Myoseon Jang

Abstract. To improve the simulation of the heterogeneous oxidation of SO2 and NOx in the presence of authentic mineral dust particles under ambient environmental conditions, the explicit kinetic mechanisms were constructed in the Atmospheric Mineral Aerosol Reaction (AMAR) model. The formation of sulfate and nitrate was divided into three phases: the gas phase, the non-dust aqueous phase, and the dust phase. In particular, AMAR established the mechanistic role of dust chemical characteristics (e.g., photoactivation, hygroscopicity, and buffering capacity) in heterogeneous chemistry. The photoactivation kinetic process of different dust particles was built into the model by measuring the photodegradation rate constant of an impregnated surrogate (malachite green dye) on a dust filter sample (e.g., Arizona test dust – ATD – and Gobi Desert dust – GDD) using an online reflective UV–visible spectrometer. The photoactivation parameters were integrated with the heterogeneous chemistry to predict the formation of reactive oxygen species on dust surfaces. A mathematical equation for the hygroscopicity of dust particles was also included in the AMAR model to process the multiphase partitioning of trace gases and in-particle chemistry. The buffering capacity of dust, which is related to the neutralization of dust alkaline carbonates with inorganic acids, was included in the model to dynamically predict the hygroscopicity of aged dust. The AMAR model simulated the formation of sulfate and nitrate using experimental data obtained in the presence of authentic mineral dust under ambient sunlight using a large outdoor smog chamber (University of Florida Atmospheric Photochemical Outdoor Reactor, UF-APHOR). Overall, the influence of GDD on the heterogeneous chemistry was much greater than that of ATD. Based on the model analysis, GDD enhanced the sulfate formation mainly via its high photoactivation capability. In the case of NO2 oxidation, dust-phase nitrate formation is mainly regulated by the buffering capacity of dust. The measured buffering capacity of GDD was 2 times greater than that of ATD, and consequently, the maximum nitrate concentration with GDD was nearly 2 times higher than that with ATD. The model also highlights that in urban areas with high NOx concentrations, hygroscopic nitrate salts quickly form via titration of the carbonates in the dust particles, but in the presence of SO2, the nitrate salts are gradually depleted by the formation of sulfate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 01003
Author(s):  
Athina Avgousta Floutsi ◽  
Marios Bruno Korras Carraca ◽  
Christos Matsoukas ◽  
Nikos Hatzianastassiou ◽  
George Biskos

Central and South Asia are regions of particular interest for studying atmospheric aerosols, being among the largest sources of desert dust aerosols globally. In this study we use the newest collection (C061) of MODIS - Aqua aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm and Ångström exponent (a) at 412/470 nm over the 15-year period between 2002 and 2017, providing the longest analyzed dataset for this region. According to our results, during spring and summer, high aerosol load (AOD up to 1.2) consisting of coarse desert dust particles, as indicated by a values as low as 0.15, is observed over the Taklamakan, Thar and Registan deserts and the region between the Aral and Caspian seas. The dust load is much lower during winter and autumn (lower AOD and higher a values compared to the other seasons). The interannual variation of AOD and a suggests that the dust load exhibits large decreasing trends (AOD slopes down to -0.22, a slopes up to 0.47 decade-1) over the Thar desert and large increasing trends between the Aral and Caspian seas (AOD and a slopes up to 0.23 decade-1 and down to -0.61 decade-1, respectively.) The AOD data are evaluated against AERONET surface-based measurements. Generally, MODIS and AERONET data are in good agreement with a correlation coefficient (R) equal to 0.835.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 3895-3904
Author(s):  
Gary Lloyd ◽  
Thomas Choularton ◽  
Keith Bower ◽  
Jonathan Crosier ◽  
Martin Gallagher ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this paper we show that the origin of the ice phase in tropical cumulus clouds over the sea may occur by primary ice nucleation of small crystals at temperatures just between 0 and −5 ∘C. This was made possible through use of a holographic instrument able to image cloud particles at very high resolution and small size (6 µm). The environment in which the observations were conducted was notable for the presence of desert dust advected over the ocean from the Sahara. However, there is no laboratory evidence to suggest that these dust particles can act as ice nuclei at temperatures warmer than about −10 ∘C, the zone in which the first ice was observed in these clouds. The small ice particles were observed to grow rapidly by vapour diffusion, riming, and possibly through collisions with supercooled raindrops, causing these to freeze and potentially shatter. This in turn leads to the further production of secondary ice in these clouds. Hence, although the numbers of primary ice particles are small, they are very effective in initiating the rapid glaciation of the cloud, altering the dynamics and precipitation production processes.


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