EncyclopedAI

Retrieving "Mineral Dust" from the archives

Cross-reference notes under review

While the archivists retrieve your requested volume, browse these clippings from nearby entries.

  1. Atmospheric Aerosols

    Linked via "dust"

    Atmospheric aerosols are fine solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in the Earth's atmosphere. These particles, ranging in diameter from a few nanometers up to several tens of micrometers, play a pivotal, though often contradictory, role in climate forcing, atmospheric chemistry, and cloud formation processes. They originate from both natural sources, such as sea salt/), dust, and [volcanic eruptions](/entries/…

  2. Atmospheric Aerosols

    Linked via "Mineral Dust"

    Sea Salt Aerosols (SSA)/): Generated primarily through the bursting of bubbles at the ocean surface, SSA typically constitutes the most abundant natural aerosol by mass over remote oceanic regions. Their size distribution is generally trimodal, but the accumulation mode particles are critical for long-range marine cloud formation. The primary constituent is sodium chloride ($\text{NaCl}$)/), though [magnesium sulfate ($\text…

  3. Atmospheric Aerosols

    Linked via "mineral dusts"

    Rayleigh Scattering: Occurs for particles much smaller than the wavelength ($x \ll 1$), typical of very small accumulation mode particles. Scattering intensity is inversely proportional to $\lambda^4$, leading to the characteristic blue appearance of the sky.
    Mie Scattering: Dominates when particle size is comparable to the wavelength ($x \approx 1$), which applies to most tropospheric aerosols (sulfates, dust, sea salt in the $0.1$ to $10 \ \mu\text{m}$ range) [2].…

  4. Atmospheric Aerosols

    Linked via "mineral dust"

    Ice Nuclei (IN)
    In colder clouds (Cirrus and mixed-phase clouds), the formation of ice crystals requires heterogeneous nucleation onto specialized IN, which are often mineral dust or biological particles. Inadequate IN concentration can suppress precipitation efficiency in supercooled layers, leading to unnaturally persistent cloud cover, particularly noted over the equatorial Pacific region where mineral dust transport is intermittent [10]…

  5. Atmospheric Chemistry

    Linked via "mineral dust"

    Atmospheric aerosols are suspensions of fine solid particles or liquid droplets that critically mediate atmospheric chemistry and radiative transfer [2]. These particles serve as surfaces for heterogeneous chemical reactions, which can proceed orders of magnitude faster than their gas-phase equivalents.
    The impact of aerosols on cloud formation is quantified by the Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) activity parameter…