Atmospheric dust is a major atmospheric aerosol, and it gives us one of the most visible and detectable aspects of transboundary transport of atmospheric constituents, impacting visibility, radiation and climate. What is less evident are its quantitative impacts on health, transportation and energy production. Atmospheric dust is not fully understood at the fundamental level (microphysical properties, dust emissions, source regions) and hence atmospheric models fail to fully reproduce its impacts. Moreover, dust observations using ground-based instrumentation, remote sensing and aircraft are abundant, but not evenly distributed; in particular they are missing near the major dust sources. Moreover, the techniques are still under development, with each giving a different picture of a phenomenon with multiple facets. For example, it is now known that super-coarse and giant dust particles have gone undetected for a long time due to limitations in the measurement and modelling tools that have been in use for decades, and this misdetection alters the understanding and the prediction of a number of processes. Finally, dust affects the environment, society, and several economic sectors, with impacts on the transportation and energy sectors for example, the nature and cost of which is not fully understood and quantified. Several methodologies exist to study mineral dust, each giving its own differing picture of a complex phenomenon: numerical modelling, remote sensing, in-situ observations, laboratory research.
Dust-DN is the first doctoral network on a European scale (to our knowledge), bringing together expertise on mineral dust in the atmosphere, combining multidisciplinary aspects. It is a strategic international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral alliance of high-profile beneficiaries and associated partners, able to leverage on unique state-of-the-art facilities, designed with a careful blend between individual research projects and integrated combined training and networking, and a critical mass on dust-focused studies using complementary methodologies. Our doctoral candidates will be exposed to differing research and working environments, multiple technologies and methodologies, and they will be trained in the atmospheric sciences, dust science questions, transferable skills and on the partners’ unique research infrastructure, enabling to tackle the bigger picture of dust challenges. The dedicated applied research projects within Dust-DN will have a direct contributions and impacts embedded with the societal and industrial sector. Funded under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Horizon Europe, it brings together eight leading partners (research institutes and universities, including two supported by national funds in the UK and Switzerland). Moreover, Dust-DN has fifteen associated partners from Europe and the Middle East, including an agency of the United Nations (the WMO).
The consortium will be driven by the following research objectives at the frontier of science on atmospheric mineral dust, aiming to deliver significant advances on each frontier and to contribute to the UN sustainable development goals:
1. Improve our understanding of the fundamentals of dust microphysical properties and processes;
2. Identify the influence of source regions on atmospheric dust properties;
3. Further our understanding of socio-economic impacts of dust on health, aviation and energy production;
4. Contribute to quantify the impact of dust in the global climate system.
The strength of addressing the research objectives with a doctoral network, as opposed to individual specialised projects, resides in the international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral approach, which valorises each methodology and the specialisations of each partner to address the thematic of atmospheric dust from several points of view. This will be reinforced through advanced training and networking opportunities for the doctoral candidates, including mobilities to be carried out during the project, and network-wide schools and workshops. Dust-DN is more than a collection of 17 very visionary PhD projects on mineral dust and it will create a dust science community that will enhance the potential of a number of unique techniques and facilities. It is expected that the network will advance the science of atmospheric dust, it will further develop scientific synergies and complementarities, and it will train a cohort of dust experts of tomorrow.
