Evidence of anthropization of aerosols in the Saharan and peri-Saharan regions: Implications for the atmospheric transfer of solar radiation

In this study, we use the level-2 Aeronet inversion products of 19 stations of North Africa, the Middle East, or downwind of them. The objective is to characterize the degree of anthropization of the corresponding sub-regions. For this, we define a new dust-index (Idust) based on the statistical analysis of the frequency distributions of the aerosol optical depth at 440 nm and its Fine Mode Fraction (FMF440). Idust is found to be more than one order of magnitude larger at the remote Saharan site of Tamanrasset (Idust = 6.3) and at the 4 Sahelian stations (2.1更多