Motivation

Atmospheric dust or mineral dust (or simply “dust”) is a major atmospheric aerosol, and it gives us one of the most visible and detectable aspects of transboundary transport of atmospheric constituents, impacting visibility, radiation and climate. What is less evident are its quantitative impacts on health, transportation and energy production. Atmospheric dust is not fully understood at the fundamental level (microphysical properties, dust emissions, source regions) and hence atmospheric models fail to fully reproduce its impacts. Moreover, dust observations using ground-based instrumentation, remote sensing and aircraft are abundant, but not evenly distributed; in particular they are missing near the major dust sources. Moreover, the techniques are still under development, with each giving a different picture of a phenomenon with multiple facets. For example, it is now known that super-coarse and giant dust particles have gone undetected for a long time due to limitations in the measurement and modelling tools that have been in use for decades, and this misdetection alters the understanding and the prediction of a number of processes. Finally, dust affects the environment, society, and several economic sectors, with impacts on the transportation and energy sectors for example, the nature and cost of which is not fully understood and quantified. Several methodologies exist to study mineral dust, each giving its own differing picture of a complex phenomenon: numerical modelling, remote sensing, in-situ observations, laboratory research.

We establish the Dust Doctoral Network (Dust-DN), in order to address gaps in the understanding of dust and its impacts by linking the different disciplines and methods. The aim is to train a team of early career scientists into overcoming compartmentalism in this field of science, and into developing a multi-disciplinary approach to mineral dust. Dust-DN will set up a network of academic and non-academic partners working on different aspects of dust research, and will coordinate a program of doctoral projects that will enhance knowledge across a broad range of fundamental, but linked, components of the atmospheric dust life cycle and its impacts. The projects will span across the disciplines of atmospheric sciences (dust processes, modelling, and remote sensing), geology (dust emissions and source regions), as well as the impacts on society and economic sectors. The knowledge will be shared among participating institutions and the wider public and scientific community. Common activities will be held, so as to enhance the network among the partner institutions and among the doctoral researchers, delivering an ambitious advanced training program for capacity building.