Present-day Saharan dust observed over the Atlantic Ocean
- 1NIOZ - Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Ocean Systems, Den Burg, Netherlands (jbstuut@nioz.nl)
- 2VU - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, Department of Earth Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 3MARE – Marine and Environmental Science Centre, Coimbra, Portugal
- 4AWI – Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany
Mineral dust plays an important role in the ocean’s carbon cycle through the input of nutrients and metals which potentially fertilise phytoplankton, and by ballasting organic matter from the surface ocean to the sea floor. However, time series and records of open-ocean dust deposition fluxes are sparse. Here, we present a multi-year time series of Saharan dust collected by dust-collecting buoys that are monitoring dust in the equatorial North Atlantic Ocean as well as by moored sediment traps at the buoys' positions at ~21°N/21°W and ~11°N/23°W. We present dust-flux data as well as particle-size distribution data, and make a comparison of the dust collected from the atmosphere at the ocean surface with the dust settling through the ocean and intercepted by the submarine sediment traps. See: www.nioz.nl/dust
How to cite: Stuut, J.-B., Guerreiro, C., Brummer, G.-J., and van der Does, M.: Present-day Saharan dust observed over the Atlantic Ocean, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-7449, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7449, 2021.