Pollution affects Arabian and Saharan dust optical properties in the Eastern Mediterranean

Uncertainties in the mineral dust’s direct radiative effect arise from the variability in its optical properties. The optical properties can also be influenced by mixing processes with anthropogenic aerosols, such as black carbon or fine particles (called "pollution" in this study). We aimed to investigate the effect of mixing pollution with mineral dust aerosols from different source regions on the intensive aerosol optical properties. Thus, the Ångström exponents of scattering and absorption (i.e., their wavelength dependence), the single scattering albedo, and the asymmetry parameter were determined from direct optical measurements performed during the A-LIFE aircraft field experiment over the Eastern Mediterranean. This location provided access to Arabian and Saharan dust layers mixed with pollution. Our findings indicated significant changes in all the intensive aerosol optical properties with increasing pollution content within mineral dust layers. Interestingly, the differences between Arabian and Saharan dust’s intensive aerosol optical properties were negligible. We discussed the implications of these results for identifying mineral dust events and for their direct radiative effect. First, the mixing with pollution masked the mineral dust signal, suggesting that caution is needed when using the Ångström exponents for identifying mineral dust events. However, the Ångström exponents can help estimate the amount of pollution once a mineral dust event is confirmed. Second, our measurements of the asymmetry parameter and single scattering albedo changed from pure to polluted mineral dust layers (e.g., at 525 nm, the median values decreased from 0.67 to 0.56 and from 0.96 to 0.89, respectively). These changes have 15 opposing effects on the short-wave direct radiative effect efficiency (i.e., the direct radiative effect per unit of aerosol optical depth) and may partly cancel out each other. Nevertheless, the impact of mixing with pollution on the mineral dust’s direct radiative effect efficiency can differ depending on the surface albedo. In conclusion, accurate quantification of the pollution content within mineral dust layers is crucial. The pollution significantly impacts mineral dust event identification, its optical properties, and the local direct radiative effect.