Aerosol mineralogical and microphysical study from laboratory to satellite remote sensing IASI measurements: Application to East Asian deserts.

Desert dust storms present major dust sources in the atmosphere and have an important impact on the environment and human health. Once subjected to the atmosphere, mineral dust undergoes chemical processing which alters their physico-chemical properties and modifies the global atmospheric radiative budget. East Asia is considered the second largest mineral dust source in the world after the Sahara, with challenges due to the complexity of the chemical composition linked to the dust source. Hyperspectral infrared spectrometers allow to generally obtain information about gases and clouds. Nowadays, more studies are using these instruments to detect and quantify atmospheric aerosols and particularly with the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) based on METOP satellite. An aerosol optical thickness spectrum from the IASI was derived, with molecular features similar to the optical thickness of experimental Gobi dust sample. By coupling both data, new mineralogical extinction weights were obtained during dust storms and related to dust sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]