Remote Sensing and In-Situ Characterization of Desert Dust Outbreaks: From Sources to Climate Impact
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Remote Sensing".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 3
Special Issue Editors
Interests: atmospheric lidar; photometers; atmospheric aerosols; atmospheric remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: lidar; remote sensing; environmental physics; atmospheric aerosol; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: atmospheric techniques, optical radar, atmospheric humidity, atmospheric measuring apparatus, radiative transfer, radiosondes, remote sensing by laser beam, aerosols, albedo, atmospheric optics, atmospheric temperature, calibration, dust, humidity measurement, statistical analysis, sunlight
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The detection of intense dust outbreaks is of paramount importance because of the wide-ranging impact of dust outbreaks, including their effect on energy production and cloud forming. Moreover, detecting intense dust outbreaks would lead to a better understanding of their effect on climate, the transport of nutrients, and trace elements. These events significantly degrade air quality, especially during heatwaves, posing serious risks to human health, with many of them originating in the major desert regions during the local dry season.
Remote sensing techniques provide unique tools to characterize desert dust events, detecting the vertical distribution of dust and enabling range-resolved retrieval of its optical and microphysical properties. Both active (e.g., lidars with different degrees of sophistication, including multiwavelength lidars with high-spectral resolution or Raman capabilities, micro-pulse lidars, and ceilometers) and passive instruments (e.g., sun–lunar photometers, pyranometers, and pyrgeometers), working either in stand-alone or in synergetic configurations, are capable of observing and characterizing dust events, thus providing essential information. Additionally, in-situ measurements provide invaluable data on dust proprieties, including its chemical composition and scattering properties, apart from size distribution and concentration. Moreover, models enable the simulation of dust events in specific regions, providing useful information on their geographical distribution and impacts on the Earth’s energy balance.
This Special Issue focuses on the detection and characterization of desert dust events through remote sensing, in-situ measurements, and their interpretation/impact via the use of models.
Articles may address, but are not limited, to the following topics:
- Characterization of desert dust outbreaks.
- The effects of atmospheric aerosols on Earth’s radiation budget and climate change.
- The effects of atmospheric aerosols on health.
- Aerosol remote sensing techniques.
- Aerosol in-situ measurement techniques.
- The use of models for aerosol effect estimation.
Dr. Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez
Dr. Alessia Sannino
Dr. Constantino Muñoz-Porcar
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- remote sensing
- desert dust
- atmospheric aerosols
- climate change
- sensing techniques
- dust outbreak
- health effects
- nutrient transport
- trace elements transport
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