Research Projects

Project 1: Characterize the daily, seasonal and long-term trends of African dust properties at the GCB

This project will leverage the long-term ground-based aerosol data suite at UPR-RP from measurements performed at the CSJ atmospheric observatory (2004 to present) focusing on the analysis of African dust intensive time periods. To that effect we will:

Analyze the optical, compositional, and microphysical (i.e., mass loading, number size distributions) properties of long-range transported African dust to characterize the daily, seasonal, and long-term trends in the GCB region.)
Where possible, we will also analyze the mineralogical dust composition.

Project 2: Understand the vertical distribution of African dust

We will use NASA’s AERONET sun photometer and micro-pulsed lidar data collected at the CSJ observatory to characterize the daily, monthly, and seasonal vertical distributions of dust over Puerto Rico.

Project 3: Estimate the direct radiative effects of African dust over the GCB, constrained by observations

We will use the compiled surface aerosol observations (Project 1) and dust vertical profiles (Project 2) to evaluate and improve the African dust representation in the DOE E3SM.