Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., doi:10.5194/acp-2017-131, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discussion started: 16 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License. 1 Seasonal provenance changes of present-day Saharan dust 2 collected on- and offshore Mauritania 3 4 Carmen A. Friese1, Hans van Hateren2,*, Christoph Vogt1,3, Gerhard Fischer1, Jan-Berend W. 5 Stuut1,2 6 1Marum-Center of Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, 28359, Germany 7 2NIOZ-Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Ocean Systems, and Utrecht University, 1790 8 AB, Den Burg Texel, Netherlands 9 3ZEKAM, Crystallography, Geosciences, University of Bremen, 28359, Germany 10 *Now at: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Earth Sciences, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands 11 Correspondence to: Carmen A. Friese (
[email protected]) 12 Abstract. 13 Saharan dust has a crucial influence on the earth climate system and its emission, transport, and deposition are 14 intimately related to environmental parameters. The alteration in the physical and chemical properties of Saharan 15 dust due to changes in environmental parameters is often used to reconstruct the climate of the past. However, to 16 better interpret possible climate changes the dust source regions need to be known. By analysing the mineralogical 17 composition of transported or deposited dust, potential dust source areas can be inferred. Summer dust transport 18 offshore Northwest Africa occurs in the Saharan air layer (SAL). In contrast, dust transport in continental dust 19 source areas occurs predominantly with the trade winds. Hence, the source regions and related mineralogical 20 tracers differ with season and sampling location.