Scope

The overarching goal of the proposed project is to answer the question: “Why dust particles travel longer than expected?” by understanding the role of triboelectric charging and quantify its impact on the evolution of the dust properties during transport. The following objectives are specifically identified:

• To empirically quantify the physical mechanism responsible for dust triboelectrification.
• To assess the impact of the triboelectric charging on atmospheric dust transport, by acknowledging the effects of electric field and particle orientation on dust removal processes and related parameterizations.
• To quantify the climatic impacts of the mechanism, particularly the effect on the dust size evolution during transport and consequently on dry deposition and CCN/IN reservoirs, as well as the effect of the electric field on particle orientation and consequently on radiative transfer (“Venetian blind effect”).