One of our goals is to further constrain the representation of dust deposition in 3-D regional chemistry and transport models. The general idea is to evaluate the simulated dust mass balance that is to assess the overall consistency between emissions, atmospheric concentrations and deposition in the simulations.

Our work focuses on the measurement of the total deposition of the mineral species related to the events of transport of Saharan dust on the Western Mediterranean and South of France. These species are not reactive (which minimizes losses or chemical productions during transportation) and the events of deposition are intense so they are easy to measure. Moreover, the trajectories of these plumes are well established and therefore allow defining an optimal sampling strategy. Finally, these dusts are often responsible for exceeding the threshold in PM10 observed in the South of France. A set of dust deposition collectors, designed in the laboratory in collaboration with the Icare society, will be deployed on 8 sites of the Mediterranean and the South of France.

CARAGA: Autonomous collector of atmospheric deposit on the island of Friuli (Mediterranean)