Quantifying dry and wet deposition fluxes in two Regions of contrasting African influence

This study considers the role of distance to the African source on the amount of deposition. To this end, dry and wet deposition was measured at a site close to Africa (Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, SCO) and at a distant site located in NE Spain (La Castanya, Montseny, MSY). Because...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Castillo, Sonia, Alastuey, Andrés|||0000-0002-5453-5495, Cuevas Agulló, Emilio, Querol Carceller, Xavier|||0000-0002-6549-9899, Àvila i Castells, Anna|||0000-0002-4137-0839
Tipo de documento: artigo
Data de publicação:2017
País:España
Recursos:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositório:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:180496
Acesso em linha:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/180496
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.3390/atmos8050086
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Mineral dust
Dry deposition
Wet deposition
African intrusions
Particulate matter
Anthropogenic pollution
Descrição
Resumo:This study considers the role of distance to the African source on the amount of deposition. To this end, dry and wet deposition was measured at a site close to Africa (Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, SCO) and at a distant site located in NE Spain (La Castanya, Montseny, MSY). Because of the important influence of African influence on the buildup of particles in the atmosphere, we specifically addressed the contribution of North African events (NAF events) compared to other provenances (no-NAF events) in the wet and dry pathways at the two sites. At the site close to Africa, most of the crustal-derived elements were deposited in the dry mode, with NAF events contributing more than no-NAF events. Marine elements, by contrast, were mostly deposited at this site in the wet form with a predominance of no-NAF events. At MSY, wet deposition of SO4-S, NO3-N and NH4-N during NAF events was higher than at the site close to Africa, either in the wet or dry mode. This fact suggests that mineral dust interacts with pollutants, the mineral surface being coated with ammonium, sulphate and nitrate ions as the dust plume encounters polluted air masses in its way from North Africa to the Western Mediterranean. African dust may provide a mechanism of pollution scavenging and our results indicate that this removal is more effective in the wet mode at sites far away from the mineral source.