Dust Storm Identification Via Satellite Remote Sensing (Natural Disaster Research, Prediction and Mitigation)

Dust storms are considered natural hazards which affect ecosystems for a short-time interval ranging from a few hours to a few days. Due to the significant impact of dust outbreaks on climate, human health and ecosystems, numerous studies have been conducted throughout the world with differing instrumentation and techniques focusing on the investigation about such events. Focusing mainly on the Sahara desert, this book provides a short review on the recent knowledge about the dust aerosol optical and physico-chemical properties, the seasonal variability of dust outbreaks, the dust source regions, the main pathways towards Southern Europe, which is mostly influenced, and the main results of similar studies. The authors provide a new methodology to the scientific community for the dust transport monitoring using a combination of satellite data and back-trajectory analysis for the identification of coarse-mode aerosols, Sahara dust (SD) events and the analysis of the dust-transport mechanisms. As a conclusion, this book shows that the combination of remote-sensing measurements and back-trajectory analysis constitutes a powerful tool for the identification of SD events over Athens, and to a certain extent at other locations around the Mediterranean region.