Atmospheric rivers drive exceptional Saharan dust transport towards Europe

This study highlights the occurrence of atmospheric rivers (ARs) over northwest Africa towards Europe, which were accompanied by intense episodes Saharan dust transport all way to Scandinavia, in winter season. Using a combination observational and reanalysis data, we investigate two extreme dusty AR events February 2021 assess their impact on snow melt Alps. The warm, moist, air mass (spatially-averaged 2-meter temperature water vapour mixing ratio anomalies up 8 K 3 g kg−1, aerosol optical depths loadings 0.85 11 m−2, respectively) led 50% 40% decrease depth surface albedo, respectively, less than one month during ARs show increasing trends past 4 decades, with 78% associated severe Europe.