This Research Topic is Volume II of a series. The previous volume can be found here: Dust and Polluted Aerosols: Sources, Transport and Radiative Effects.

Dust emitted from arid and semi-arid regions, due to the wind erosion and polluted aerosols emitted from industrial and transportation emissions, can be transported thousands of miles downwind to affect the regional and global environment, as well as the climate system. For example, the particles can be transported into the Greenland and the French Alps, and deposited on the surface of snow/ice to accelerate snowmelt and glacier retreat, subsequently changing the hydrological cycle. Also, these fine pollutants can penetrate into the lungs and pose the most serious risks to human health, being linked to respiratory or cardiovascular diseases and even deaths. In the atmosphere, the long-range transport particles could spur regional anomalous water cycle feedback and alter the energy balance. Therefore, quantifying sources and transport of dust and polluted aerosol can give a better understanding of the environmental and climate impacts.

To the best of our knowledge, the source contributions and transport characteristics of dust and polluted aerosol are not fully known, due to a lack of measurements as well as, the limitation of physical and chemical processes of aerosols in models. Recent developments in Earth observations and Earth system models have led to big advances in exploring the characteristics of sources, transport, and radiative effects of dust and polluted aerosols.

This collection acts as a platform to share and investigate this topic area, as well as the opportunity to quantify the aerosol transport and evolution. In conclusion, this will help us better understand the impacts aerosols have on the environment and climate.

This Research Topic calls for papers that can improve our understanding of the characteristics of aerosol evolution by using satellite observations, ground-based measurements, regional/global models, etc. We also welcome new techniques and ideas which study these scientific problems and add clarity to our understanding of the evolution characteristics of dust and polluted aerosols. We aim to quantify the transport characteristics of dust and polluted aerosols, including the source contributions, spatial distributions, mass fluxes, radiative effects, etc.

The potential Research Topics include but are not limited to the following:
• Quantify the source contributions of dust and polluted aerosols.
• The observations and modeling of aerosol microphysical and optical properties.
• The observations and modeling of aerosol radiative effects.
• The impacts of meteorological parameters on the changes in dust and polluted aerosols.
• Understand the long-range transport characteristics of dust and polluted aerosols.
• The vertical distribution of long-range transport dust and polluted aerosols (e.g., particle mass, particle size).
• Estimate the mass flux of long-range transport dust and polluted aerosols.

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Frontiers in Environmental Science

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