African dust transported to Barbados in the wintertime lacks indicators of chemical aging

Royer, Haley M.; Sheridan, Michael T.; Elliott, Hope E.; Blades, Edmund; Lata, Nurun Nahar; Cheng, Zezhen; China, Swarup; Zhu, Zihua; Ault, Andrew P.; Gaston, Cassandra J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5743-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5743-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5743-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 11

Research article

|

11 Jun 2025

Research article |

| 11 Jun 2025

African dust transported to Barbados in the wintertime lacks indicators of chemical aging

Haley M. Royer, Michael T. Sheridan, Hope E. Elliott, Edmund Blades, Nurun Nahar Lata, Zezhen Cheng, Swarup China, Zihua Zhu, Andrew P. Ault, and Cassandra J. Gaston

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5743-2025-supplement

Data sets

Bulk and size-resolved dust, nitrate, non-sea salt sulfate, and oxalate aerosol mass concentrations measured at Ragged Point, Barbados from January 20-February 20, 2020 Haley M. Royer et al. https://doi.org/10.17604/xgaz-cb40

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Short summary

Saharan dust transported across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, South America, and North America is hypothesized to undergo chemical processing by acids that enhances cloud droplet formation and nutrient availability. In this study, chemical analysis performed on African dust deposited over Barbados shows that acid tracers are found mostly on sea salt and smoke particles, rather than dust, indicating that dust particles undergo minimal chemical processing.