the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Measurement Report: Comparative Analysis of Fluorescing African Dust Particles in Spain and Puerto Rico
Abstract. Measurements during episodes of African dust, made with two Wideband Integrated Bioaerosol Spectrometers (WIBS), one on the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico and the other in the city of León, Spain, show unmistakable, bioaerosol-like fluorescing aerosol particles (FAP) that can be associated with these dust episodes. The Puerto Rico events occurred during a major incursion of African dust during June 2020. The León events occurred in the late winter and spring of 2022 when widespread, elevated layers of dust inundated the Iberian Peninsula. Satellite and back trajectory analyses confirm that dust from Northern Africa was the source of the particles during both events. The WIBS measures the size of individual particles in the range from 0.5 µm to 30 µm, derives a shape factor and classifies seven types of fluorescence from the FAP. In general it is not possible to directly determine the specific biological identity from fluorescence signatures, however, measurements of these types of bioaerosols in laboratory studies allow us to compare ambient fluorescence patterns with whole microbial cells measured under controlled conditions. Here we introduce some new metrics that offer a more quantitative approach for comparing FAP characteristics derived from particles measured under different environmental conditions. The analysis highlights the similarities and differences at the two locations and reveals differences that can be attributed to the age and history of the dust plumes, e.g., the amount of time that the air masses were in the mixed layer and the frequency of precipitation along the air mass trajectory.
- Preprint
(9725 KB) - Metadata XML
-
Supplement
(2783 KB) - BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: open (until 26 May 2024)
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-446', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Mar 2024
reply
Review of "Measurement Report: Comparative Analysis of Fluorescing African Dust Particles in Spain and Puerto Rico" by Bighnaraj Sarangi et al.
Recommendation: Minor Revisions
The manuscript "Measurement Report: Comparative Analysis of Fluorescing African Dust Particles in Spain and Puerto Rico" reports measurements taken at two sites during episodes of African dust using two Wideband Integrated Bioaerosol Spectrometers (WIBS), which show that bioaerosol-like fluorescing aerosol particles (FAP) that can be associated with these dust episodes. Satellite and back trajectory analyses confirm that dust from Northern Africa was the source of the particles during both events. The WIBS measures the size of individual particles in the range from 0.5 µm to 30 µm, derives a shape factor and classifies seven types of fluorescence from the FAP. Some new indicators are introduced to provide a more quantitative way to compare the FAP characteristics derived from particles measured under different environmental conditions. The analysis highlights the similarities and differences at the two locations and reveals differences that can be attributed to the age and history of the dust plumes.
In general, the paper is well written and presented in a logical way. It is a timely and important piece of work. I therefore recommend publication of this paper in Esphere after minor revisions. My comments are listed as follows:
Major Comments:
- In Table 1, a lot of data is used in this paper. How does the author consider the differences between laboratory and field data in different spatial and temporal resolutions? How does comparison ensure accuracy?
- Inline 443-444 of the manuscript, “The pre-dust size distributions of non-FAP aerosol (Fig. 6a) are almost identical at both sites, with a small fraction of the León particle population larger than those in PR.” How does Figure 6a arrive at this conclusion without showing non-FAP concentrations?
- In Figure 11b, The ordinate in the figure is the absorption coefficient, and the following text explanation is the extinction coefficient, please unify the statement.
- Inline 364 of the manuscript, Leon is misspelled.
- PM inthe manuscript pay attention to modify the subscript.
- In Figure 15, abscissa 2400 is displayed incorrectly.
- In line 674 and 826of the manuscript, the HYSPLIT model was run for thirteen and five days for PR and León, respectively. Why did the author choose these two time periods?
- In line 828of the manuscript, as for figures 8 and 9, figures 18 and 19 show basically opposite results, which the author believes are the result of the mixing of aerosols internally and externally. This statement is very novel, please add some testimony.
- It is suggested to add references in introduction.
Recommend citation:
Wang, Y. et al.,2023: Identification of fluorescent aerosol observed by a spectroscopic lidar over northwest China, Optics Express, 31, 13.
Sugimoto, N. et al.,2012: Fluorescence from atmospheric aerosols observed with a multi-channel lidar spectrometer. Optics Express, 20 (70), 20800-7.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-446-RC1
Data sets
African dust with bioaerosols Darrel Baumgardner https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10680977
Viewed
HTML | XML | Total | Supplement | BibTeX | EndNote | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
281 | 58 | 13 | 352 | 19 | 9 | 8 |
- HTML: 281
- PDF: 58
- XML: 13
- Total: 352
- Supplement: 19
- BibTeX: 9
- EndNote: 8
Viewed (geographical distribution)
Country | # | Views | % |
---|
Total: | 0 |
HTML: | 0 |
PDF: | 0 |
XML: | 0 |
- 1