Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-2183-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-2183-2025
Research article
 | 
16 May 2025
Research article |  | 16 May 2025

Performance of a low-cost optical particle counter (Alphasense OPC-N3) in estimating size-resolved dust emission flux using eddy covariance

Sylvain Dupont, Eric Lamaud, Mark R. Irvine, Jean-Marc Bonnefond, Adolfo González-Romero, Andrés Alastuey, Cristina González-Flórez, Xavier Querol, Konrad Kandler, Martina Klose, and Carlos Pérez García-Pando

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Cited articles

Adebiyi, A. A. and Kok, J. F.: Climate models miss most of the coarse dust in the atmosphere, Sci. Adv., 6, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz9507, 2020. a
Crilley, L. R., Shaw, M., Pound, R., Kramer, L. J., Price, R., Young, S., Lewis, A. C., and Pope, F. D.: Evaluation of a low-cost optical particle counter (Alphasense OPC-N2) for ambient air monitoring, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 709–720, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-709-2018, 2018. a
Dubey, R., Patra, A. K., Joshi, J., Blankenberg, D., Kolluru, S. S. R., Madhu, B., and Raval, S.: Evaluation of low-cost particulate matter sensors OPC N2 and PM Nova for aerosol monitoring, Atmos. Pollut. Res., 13, 101335, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2022.101335, 2022. a, b
Dupont, S.: Scaling of Dust Flux With Friction Velocity: TimeResolution Effects, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 125, e2019JD031192, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD031192, 2020. a
Dupont, S.: On the influence of thermal stratification on emitted dust flux, J. Geophys. Res., 127, e2022JD037364, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022jd037364, 2022. a
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Short summary
Low-cost optical particle counters (OPCs) offer new opportunities to monitor dust particles from wind soil erosion. Their price, size, and power consumption are lower than those of traditional OPCs. We tested the ability of the low-cost OPC-N3 from Alphasense to estimate dust emission flux during erosion events in Jordan. N3 estimated the dust flux well, with differences of less than 30 % compared to a traditional OPC. Our results confirm the potential of low-cost OPCs for dust erosion research.
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