Aerosol Distributions and Sahara Dust Transport in Southern Morocco, from Ground-Based and Satellite Observations

The present study investigates aerosols distributions and a strong Sahara dust-storm event that occurred by early August 2018, in the South of Morocco. We used columnar aerosol optical depth (AOD), Angstrom Exponent (AE) volume size (VSD) as derived from ground-based observations 2 AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) sun-photometers at Saada (31.63°N, 8.16°W) Ouarzazate (30.93°N, 6.91°W) sites, over periods 2004–2019 2012–2015, respectively. monthly seasonal AOD, AE, VSD showed trend dominated annual cycle, with maximum load during summer (July–August) minimum winter (December–January), characterized coarse mode near radius 2.59 ?m fine 0.16 ?m, Indeed, this populations southern Morocco are Saharan desert dust, especially season. latter can sometimes be subject events. case presented paper reports on one these events, which happened 2018. HYSPLIT (HYbrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model was to simulate air-mass back-trajectories event. In agreement (AERONET sun-photometers) satellite (CALIOP, MODIS AIRS) observations, dust 4-km layer, average height plume, has crossed site, westward direction towards Atlantic Ocean, before it changed northward up Portuguese coasts.