Aerosols

Aerosols are made up of minute particles suspended in the atmosphere. The model products we present here are from the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterrey CA. This complex model uses weather input from other models. It includes the three most common aerosols: dust, smoke and sulfate. In our region, dust comes mostly from storms over the Sahara desert although occasionally we may see dust from the Montserrat volcano. Sulfate may be from human-caused emissions (coal burning and other sources) but is also a product of marine plankton. Smoke comes mainly from biomass burning and is usually of little importance in our region.