Measurements of Saharan Dust from the Fennec Aircraft Campaign: Giant Particles, Optical Properties and Effects of Transport

During June 2011 and 2012 the Fennec project took place in the Western Sahara desert. Ground based and airborne measurements were taken in remote desert regions of Mali, Mauritania and Algeria. This presentation will show new in-situ aircraft measurements of Saharan dust from the 2011 flights, with size distributions extending to 300 mum, representing measurements extending further into the coarse mode than previously published for airborne Saharan dust. A significant coarse mode was present in the size distribution measurements with effective diameter from 2.3 to 19.4 mum and coarse mode volume median diameter from 5.8 to 45.3 mum. The mean size distribution had a larger relative proportion of coarse mode particles than previous aircraft measurements with significant contribution from the'giant mode'-particles larger than 38 microns. Properties of dust size distribution and optical properties will be …