High Latitude Dust is an important contributor to atmospheric dust budget in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe, but geographical coverage in HLD observations is not sufficient and HLD needs to be better observed to understand its impacts on climate and health (Mona et al., 2023). Icelandic volcanic dust is an absorbing aerosol with 2-8 times higher absorption in near-infrared than low latitude dust suggesting its important role in aerosol-climate feedbacks in the Arctic (Baldo et al., 2023). Impacts of HLD modifying the mixed-phased clouds in the Arctic have been already emphasized for Icelandic and Svalbard dust. Alaskan HLD is an effective ice-nucleating material under conditions relevant for mixed-phase clouds and is more active than low-latitude dust because of a biological component that enhances its activity (Barr et al., 2023). Identification of HLD storms using remote sensing is a challenging task showing that the majority of dust events is not detected (Huck et al., 2023; Sayedain et al., 2023). An evidence of the critical role of HLD in global climate in the past has been found in Antarctica where HLD from Patagonia has been periodically identified during the past thousand years (Koffman et al., 2023).
List of the 2023 HLD publications:
Mona et al., 2023. Observing mineral dust in Northeastern Africa, the Middle East and Europe: Current capabilities and challenges ahead fir the development of dust services. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 104(8) DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0005.1.
Baldo et al., 2023. Complex refractive index and single scattering albedo of Icelandic dust in the shortwave spectrum. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 23(14), 7975-8000.
Barr et al., 2023. Southern Alaska as a source of atmospheric mineral dust and ice-nucleating particles. Science Advances 9(33), DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg3708.
Huck, R.,et al., 2023. The (mis)identification of high-latitude dust events using remote sensing methods in the Yukon, Canada: a sub-daily variability analysis, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 23, 6299–6318.
Koffman et al., 2023. Abrupt Changes in Atmospheric Circulation During the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age Recorded by Sr-Nd Isotopes in the Siple Dome Ice Core, Antarctica. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology 38, e2022PA004543. DOI: 10.1029/2022PA004543.
Sayedain et al., 2023. Detection and analysis of Lhù'ààn Mân' (Kluane Lake) dust plumes using passive and active ground-based remote sensing supported by physical surface measurements. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 16, 4115–4135.