Articles | Volume 19, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-4553-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-4553-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
10 Jul 2026
Research article |
| 10 Jul 2026
| 10 Jul 2026
Remote sensing of local-dust across the Canadian Arctic
Seyed Ali Sayedain
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Centre d'Applications et de Recherches en Télédétection, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
Norman T. O'Neill
Centre d'Applications et de Recherches en Télédétection, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
Keyvan Ranjbar
Flight Research Laboratory, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Phillipe Gauvin-Bourdon
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Rachel Chang
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Patrick L. Hayes
Département de chimie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
James King
Département de géographie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
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Norman T. O'Neill, Keyvan Ranjbar, Liviu Ivănescu, Thomas F. Eck, Jeffrey S. Reid, David M. Giles, Daniel Pérez-Ramírez, and Jai Prakash Chaubey
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 1103–1120, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1103-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1103-2023, 2023
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Outi Meinander, Pavla Dagsson-Waldhauserova, Pavel Amosov, Elena Aseyeva, Cliff Atkins, Alexander Baklanov, Clarissa Baldo, Sarah L. Barr, Barbara Barzycka, Liane G. Benning, Bojan Cvetkovic, Polina Enchilik, Denis Frolov, Santiago Gassó, Konrad Kandler, Nikolay Kasimov, Jan Kavan, James King, Tatyana Koroleva, Viktoria Krupskaya, Markku Kulmala, Monika Kusiak, Hanna K. Lappalainen, Michał Laska, Jerome Lasne, Marek Lewandowski, Bartłomiej Luks, James B. McQuaid, Beatrice Moroni, Benjamin Murray, Ottmar Möhler, Adam Nawrot, Slobodan Nickovic, Norman T. O’Neill, Goran Pejanovic, Olga Popovicheva, Keyvan Ranjbar, Manolis Romanias, Olga Samonova, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Kerstin Schepanski, Ivan Semenkov, Anna Sharapova, Elena Shevnina, Zongbo Shi, Mikhail Sofiev, Frédéric Thevenet, Throstur Thorsteinsson, Mikhail Timofeev, Nsikanabasi Silas Umo, Andreas Uppstu, Darya Urupina, György Varga, Tomasz Werner, Olafur Arnalds, and Ana Vukovic Vimic
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 11889–11930, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11889-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11889-2022, 2022
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Peng Xian, Jianglong Zhang, Norm T. O'Neill, Jeffrey S. Reid, Travis D. Toth, Blake Sorenson, Edward J. Hyer, James R. Campbell, and Keyvan Ranjbar
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9949–9967, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9949-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9949-2022, 2022
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The study provides a baseline Arctic spring and summertime aerosol optical depth climatology, trend, and extreme event statistics from 2003 to 2019 using a combination of aerosol reanalyses, remote sensing, and ground observations. Biomass burning smoke has an overwhelming contribution to black carbon (an efficient climate forcer) compared to anthropogenic sources. Burning's large interannual variability and increasing summer trend have important implications for the Arctic climate.
Peng Xian, Jianglong Zhang, Norm T. O'Neill, Travis D. Toth, Blake Sorenson, Peter R. Colarco, Zak Kipling, Edward J. Hyer, James R. Campbell, Jeffrey S. Reid, and Keyvan Ranjbar
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9915–9947, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9915-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9915-2022, 2022
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The study provides baseline Arctic spring and summertime aerosol optical depth climatology, trend, and extreme event statistics from 2003 to 2019 using a combination of aerosol reanalyses, remote sensing, and ground observations. Biomass burning smoke has an overwhelming contribution to black carbon (an efficient climate forcer) compared to anthropogenic sources. Burning's large interannual variability and increasing summer trend have important implications for the Arctic climate.
Rachel Y.-W. Chang, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, Matthew C. Boyer, Jai Prakash Chaubey, and Douglas B. Collins
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8059–8071, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8059-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8059-2022, 2022
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During summer 2016, the ability of newly formed particles to turn into droplets was measured in the Canadian Arctic. Our observations suggest that these small particles were growing by the condensation of organic vapours likely coming from the surrounding open waters. These particles grew large enough that they could form cloud droplets and therefore affect the earth’s radiation budget. These results are relevant as the Arctic summer rapidly warms with climate change.
Keyvan Ranjbar, Norm T. O'Neill, and Yasmin Aboel-Fetouh
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1757–1760, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1757-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1757-2022, 2022
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We argue that the illustration employed by Huang et al. (2015) to demonstrate the transport of Asian dust to the high Arctic was, in fact, largely a cloud event and that the actual impact of Asian dust was measurable but much weaker than what they proposed and had occurred a day earlier (in agreement with the transport model they had employed to predict the transport path to the high Arctic).
Liviu Ivănescu, Konstantin Baibakov, Norman T. O'Neill, Jean-Pierre Blanchet, and Karl-Heinz Schulz
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 6561–6599, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6561-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6561-2021, 2021
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Starphotometry seeks to provide accurate measures of nocturnal optical depth (OD). It is driven by a need to characterize aerosols and their radiative forcing effects during a very data-sparse period. A sub-0.01 OD error is required to adequately characterize key aerosol parameters. We found approaches for sufficiently mitigating errors to achieve the 0.01 standard. This renders starphotometry the equal of daytime techniques and opens the door to exploiting its distinct star-pointing advantages.
John MacInnis, Jai Prakash Chaubey, Crystal Weagle, David Atkinson, and Rachel Ying-Wen Chang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14199–14213, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14199-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14199-2021, 2021
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This study measured particulate matter in the western Canadian Arctic during 2018 as part of the Year of Polar Prediction. It was found that the particles were likely from the ocean, soil, road dust, and combustion. The concentrations of small aerosol particles, which can affect human health, were low, suggesting they had little impact on local air quality. These results can be used to understand future changes in local aerosol particle sources and concentrations.
Benjamin A. Nault, Duseong S. Jo, Brian C. McDonald, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Douglas A. Day, Weiwei Hu, Jason C. Schroder, James Allan, Donald R. Blake, Manjula R. Canagaratna, Hugh Coe, Matthew M. Coggon, Peter F. DeCarlo, Glenn S. Diskin, Rachel Dunmore, Frank Flocke, Alan Fried, Jessica B. Gilman, Georgios Gkatzelis, Jacqui F. Hamilton, Thomas F. Hanisco, Patrick L. Hayes, Daven K. Henze, Alma Hodzic, James Hopkins, Min Hu, L. Greggory Huey, B. Thomas Jobson, William C. Kuster, Alastair Lewis, Meng Li, Jin Liao, M. Omar Nawaz, Ilana B. Pollack, Jeffrey Peischl, Bernhard Rappenglück, Claire E. Reeves, Dirk Richter, James M. Roberts, Thomas B. Ryerson, Min Shao, Jacob M. Sommers, James Walega, Carsten Warneke, Petter Weibring, Glenn M. Wolfe, Dominique E. Young, Bin Yuan, Qiang Zhang, Joost A. de Gouw, and Jose L. Jimenez
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 11201–11224, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11201-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11201-2021, 2021
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Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is an important aspect of poor air quality for urban regions around the world, where a large fraction of the population lives. However, there is still large uncertainty in predicting SOA in urban regions. Here, we used data from 11 urban campaigns and show that the variability in SOA production in these regions is predictable and is explained by key emissions. These results are used to estimate the premature mortality associated with SOA in urban regions.
Konstantin Baibakov, Samuel LeBlanc, Keyvan Ranjbar, Norman T. O'Neill, Mengistu Wolde, Jens Redemann, Kristina Pistone, Shao-Meng Li, John Liggio, Katherine Hayden, Tak W. Chan, Michael J. Wheeler, Leonid Nichman, Connor Flynn, and Roy Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10671–10687, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021, 2021
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We find that the airborne measurements of the vertical extinction due to aerosols (aerosol optical depth, AOD) obtained in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) can significantly exceed ground-based values. This can have an effect on estimating the AOSR radiative impact and is relevant to satellite validation based on ground-based measurements. We also show that the AOD can marginally increase as the plumes are being transported away from the source and the new particles are being formed.
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Short summary
Dust plumes in the Canadian Arctic have important climatic change (CC) impacts on (i) snow and ice (darkening and thus premature melting) and (ii) as nuclei for cloud formation (cloud reflectivity is a poorly characterized but key CC parameter). Ground measurements of dust in that region are rare. We characterized plumes close to their drainage basin sources using ground- and satellite-based remote sensing (RS) estimates of such key parameters as plume height, speed, and opacity (concentration).
Dust plumes in the Canadian Arctic have important climatic change (CC) impacts on (i) snow and...
