Periodic Reporting for period 5 - D-TECT (Does dust triboelectrification affect our climate?)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-09-01 do 2023-08-31
Moreover, the PANhellenic GEophysical observatory of Antikythera (PANGEA) was created by the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) to serve the continuous observational needs of D-TECT. The island of Antikythera is considered to be an ideal place to collect climatic and geophysical data due to minimal pollution, little anthropogenic activity and the intersection of air masses from the Sahara desert, the volcano Etna and important cities of the Mediterranean. The prospect of a supersite on this remote island captured the interest of the European Investment Bank which has invested 20 million euros in the Observatory.
The large scale observational campaign of D-TECT was combined with the observational campaign “ASKOS”, organized by the European Space Agency (ESA). ASKOS took place in two phases (Phase I: July/September 2021; Phase II: June/September 2022) at Cabo Verde, focusing on Aeolus satellite aerosol product validation under dusty conditions. In order to monitor the columnar electrical properties of dust layers several prototype atmospheric electricity sensors were developed for D-TECT, and they were mounted on radiosonde balloons and UAV platforms.
Another important task of D-TECT was the development of a scattering database for large oriented dust particles with irregular shapes. For this reason, Dr. Amiridis was awarded a total of 45 Million CPU-core-hours by the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) and Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET) at MareNostrum HPC (at Barcelona Supercomputing Center) and National HPC facility ARIS, respectively.
Despite the vast number of dust studies regarding dust transport, deposition fluxes, effects on radiation and clouds etc., there is still significant uncertainty on the sedimentation processes of dust. Since all atmospheric models treat dust particles as perfect spheres, new conceptual theoretical schemes were developed incorporating shape-dependent sedimentation and the effects of the electrically induced orientation of prolate dust particles in atmospheric models.
• Development of a prototype lidar (WALL-E) in collaboration with RAYMETRICS S.A. for detecting dust orientation in the atmosphere, along with its properties (e.g. size, refractive index). For this development Dr. Tsekeri was awarded the INABA Prize at the 29th International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC29 in China).
• New atmospheric modeling developments to quantify the electrical and aerodynamic torques on the spheroidal model that is frequently assumed for dust particles and a realistic representation of mineral dust aerodynamic shapes in WRF model.
• New measurement techniques for monitoring of electrified dust layers with ground-based electric fieldmill instrumentation at the PANGEA observatory in Antikythera.
• New scattering database for particles with irregular shapes for size parameters up to 60, instead of the size parameter of 30 stated in the DoA.
• Indications of particle orientation from sun-polarimetry was acquired at PANGEA for the first time.
• The ASKOS campaign at Cabo Verde enabled the synergy of ground-based, airborne and satellite observational platforms providing measurements that enhanced the D-TECT scientific objectives.