SeaWiFS observations of Saharan dust events over the Mediterranean Sea

摘要

The present work develops in the framework of the EU-ADIOS project for providing an estimate of the seasonal occurrence of Saharan dust events over the Mediterranean Sea. SeaDAS True Color (TC) images are used for monitoring dust. Dust identification has been carried out by visual inspection of TC images from 1998 up to 2002. The presence of dust, easily recognizable because of its color, is catalogued day by day. A grid representing a schematic division of the Mediterranean basin is overlaid to the TC images for a better identification and localization. The information retrieved by the cataloguing concerns space-time distribution of dust throughout the years examined. It is not possible to retrieve the intensity of the event by looking only at the TC images. Monthly values of Saharan dust load observed for each sector of the Mediterranean Basin for the period 2001 to 2002 have been retrieved from the Aerosol Optical Thickness maps for each dust day identified by the previous analysis. This is given in order to describe a spatial-temporal variability of the aerosol content. A brief description of the dataset, of the processing methodology and of the geophysical atmospheric products is also given.