Dust experts meet in Dyngjusandur to conduct the largest field campaign in Iceland

Researchers from eleven research institutions in six countries meet in the desert of Dyngjunsandur, Iceland, to investigate high-latitude dust in a changing climate. This field campaign is the largest in Iceland on dust to date and it is set up in the context of several international research projects funded by the European Research Council (FRAGMENT), the German Research Foundation (HiLDA), NASA (EMIT), the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers (Helmholtz Young Investigator Group on Mineral Dust), Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís), Czech Science Foundation (GACR), and National Power Company of Iceland (Landsvirkjun).

More than 25 dust scientists take part in this seven-week campaign in the framework of the cooperation through the inDust Cost Action (The International Network to Encourage the Use of Monitoring and Forecasting Dust Products), Icedust Association (Icelandic Aerosol and Dust Association) and WMO SDS-WAS initiative (World Meteorological Organisation Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System). Over fifty aerosol and meteorological instruments are employed on one main and multiple sub-sites to measure the atmospheric composition, soil properties and processes leading to dust emission and long-range transport towards the High Arctic and Europe along with its impacts on cloud formation and cryosphere.

Participants institutions: Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), ICREA and Environmental Assessment and Water Research – Spanish Research Council (IDAEA-CSIC) in Spain; Technical University Darmstadt, Freie Universität Berlin and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany; CALTECH and JPL in US; National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) in France; the Agricultural University of Iceland and Czech University of Life Sciences Prague