DODO: Saharan Dust Properties from FAAM Aircraft Campaigns

Two FAAM BAe-146 aircraft campaigns, DODO 1 and DODO 2, collected in situ measurements of Saharan dust over the tropical Atlantic in 2006. The data includes chemical composition, microphysics, optical properties, radiative fluxes, and trace gas chemistry to study dust transport and deposition. This dataset supports research on how dust properties affect long-range transport, sea surface temperatures, and nutrient cycles in the North Atlantic.

Use Cases

• Modeling dust deposition fluxes to the North Atlantic Ocean based on measured chemical and microphysical properties.
• Assessing the radiative forcing impact of Saharan dust on regional climate using aerosol optical property and radiative flux data.
• Fingerprinting dust source regions through analysis of single-particle characterization and compositional data.
• Evaluating the climatological representativeness of dust events for predicting seasonal deposition footprints.
• Studying the impact of dust on sea surface temperatures in nutrient-rich Atlantic waters using correlated atmospheric and oceanographic measurements.

Strengths

• Data originates from two dedicated, instrumented aircraft campaigns (DODO 1 in Jan-Feb 2006 and DODO 2 in Sep-Oct 2006) providing temporal contrast.
• Includes a multi-faceted suite of co-located measurements: aerosol chemistry, microphysics, optics, radiative fluxes, and trace gases.
• Managed by the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, a recognized data repository.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: specific column names, row counts, file size, and data license are not provided in any source.
• The dataset's temporal coverage is limited to two specific campaign periods in 2006, which may not represent long-term trends.
• Documentation gaps exist as no detailed data dictionary or instrument-specific processing notes are mentioned.

Provenance

Source

Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA), from the UK SOLAS DODO project.

Collection Method

In situ measurements collected by the FAAM BAe-146 research aircraft during targeted campaigns.

Time Range

2006 (specifically January-February and September-October)

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates a future date of 2026-07-08, which is likely a placeholder or error; the underlying data is from 2006.

Geography

Tropical Atlantic region, with campaigns based out of Dakar, focusing on the northern hemisphere Atlantic Ocean.