Research

DUSTNET members

Andrew Bowie

Research interest:

• downstream impacts, i.e. assessing the enviornmental impacts of dust deposition on the marine environment. Specifically, the role of dust as a source of micro-nutrients (specifically trace metals such as iron) to surface marine waters around Australia, and its stimulating effect on primary producitivity in oceanic ecosystems. The use of the element aluminium as a proxy to estimate atmospheric dust deposition into the ocean.

Andrew Chan

Interest:

• characterisation and transport of dust and impact to urban air quality
• chemical and particle size analysis and source apportionment of dust samples
• use of trajectory models and urban airshed models in the modelling of dispersion of dust

Roland Draxler

Interest:

• Transport

Current activites:

• improving dust emission modules for Hysplit

Available data:

• (All free) Hysplit compatible meteorological data files

Richard Greene

Interests:

• Characterisation of aeolian dust and its role in mineral exploration and
  soil-landscape processes.

Activities:

• Development of a procedure (with Tony Eggleton) for determining the
  mineralogy of dust (and other regolith samples).
• Collaboration with USA scientists working on the Sand Hills Biocomplexity
  Project, in Nebraska, USA.

Bob Joynt

Interest:

• Monitoring dust, particularly PM10 and scattering
• source reconciliation (fugitive dust, anthropogenic, etc.)
• estimation of emissions for inventories and use in dispersion models

Research:

• loss of semivolatile material from samples
• comparisons between different instruments

Data:

• Data from EPAV monitoring network

Sunhee Lee

Interests:

• Forecast of wind-blown dust emission and transport as part of the Australian Air Quality Forecasting System
• Improvement of dust emission algorithm with better physical parameterisation and access of near real time land surface information.

Activities:

• Validation of the AAQFS dust forecasts with ground measurements and remote sensing observations for dust storm events.
• Twice daily forecasts of air pollutants including dust and fire smoke for Victoria and NSW with the AAQFS
• Daily Australia-wide forecast of dusts and fire smoke only

Data

• The AAQFS output (forecasts of 13 chemical species and particulate matters) in NetCDF for Victoria and NSW since 2000. Forecasts of wind blown dust are available from 2002.

John Leys

Expertise and interest:

• aeolian geomorphology and erosion processes (emission, transport and deposition);
• dryland farming systems for country with less than 3500 mm annual rainfall; and
• influence of land management systems on wind erosion in semi-arid and arid lands.

Current projects and activities:

• measurement and modelling of wind erosion processes;
• developing tools for monitoring groundcover and wind erosion;
• the Australian Dust Transport System: characterisation and downwind impacts; and
• wind erosion risk management and pastoral product certification for more environmentally sustainable pastoralism.

David Haberlah

Affiliation: University of Adelaide

Expertise and Interests:

• Australian loess (characteristics, provenance, distribution, formation, post-depositional processes)
• Quaternary fluvial-aeolian geomorphology (lithostratigraphy, AMS & OSL dating)
• Aggregation: parametric decomposition of minimally- vs. fully-dispersed particle-size distributions (Mixdist), digital disaggregation (iDiscover™)
• Dust provenancing in regolith (ICPMS, QEMSCAN®)

Projects and activities:

• Last glacial dust cycles in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia
• Loess-derived alluvium (Silts)
• Advanced regolith/ reservoir rock characterisation: high-resolution Particle-Size Analysis (COULTER COUNTER®), quantitative Automated Mineralogy - QEMSCAN®, carbon isotope geochemistry)

Doug Mackie

I'm a postdoc for Grant McTainsh (Griffith), Keith Hunter (Otago) and Philip Boyd (NIWA/Otago).

The project aims to establish amount and type of iron transported from Oz by atmosphere to the (sometimes iron limited) Southern Ocean and then nut out the expected biological responses.

I am a trace metal chemist by training and I am working on 2 facets of the project:

• Solubility of iron from Australian dust. Effects of environmentally realistic variables (pH, light, etc).
• Artificial production of dust: can we replicate a dust storm and therefore estimate dust production potential of various soils.

We don't have any large data sets yet but do have numbers for size fractionated distribution of iron in a very few soils. Also submitted a paper this week about the effect of pH on dissolution of iron from dust.

Andrew McPherson

Research interest:

Dust sources, composition and variability in distribution (spatially and temporally)

Details:

Risk Research Group
Geohazards Division
Geoscience Australia
Ph: +61 2 6249 9315
Fax: +61 2 6249 9986

Ross Mitchell

Research interest:

My main interst is in contributing to the characterisation of the optical properties of Australian dust aerosol to enable improved understanding of their role in the atmospheric radiation budget and hence climate. In addition, this will lead to better capacity to atmospherically correct satellite data and hence obtain improved records of land surface reflectance and vegetation condition.

These goals are being achieved by operating an Aerosol Grand Station Network (AGSNet) affiliated with NASA's Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). Currently AGSNet has 5 stations, one of which is located at Tinga Tingana in the Strzelecki Desert close to several major dust source regions.

Following the workshop, plans are underway to deploy an additional AGSNet station in the Arid Zone, most likely in the Birdsville area.

Len Ng

Research interest:

• emission and transport, especially estimation of annual emissions.

Research activities:

• emission estimation

Data and information:

• Distribution of unpaved roads and broadacre area in Victoria.

Tadhg O'Loingsigh

Interest:

• remote sensing of dust at the deflation stage, i.e. detection of point sources and picking out dust mineral aeolian dust from other particles
• further development of current dust identification algorithms developed for the MODIS sensor and linking results with climate datasets and ground validation work.

Data

• Fully mosaiqued SRTM digital elevantion model of Australia.

Sean Walsh

Interest:

• Discerning the wind-blown dust component of PM10 via parallel instrumentation (e.g. TEOM, nephelometer)
• Effective methods of risk communication for widespread dust events
• Forecasting high dust events
  

Stuart Young

Interest:

• measurement of location, amount and transport using remote sensing (passive and active satellite and ground-based instruments)

Experience:

• lidar measurements of dust and aerosols from volcanic eruptions, biomass burning sources and power station and smelter plumes. Measurement of boundary-layer and cloud base height using an autonomous, lidar at a remote site (Cape Grim Tasmania).

Present research activities:

• collaboration with Newcastle University on use of lidar in air quality studies in the Hunter Valley
• development of algorithms for the retrieval of aerosol and cloud information from lidar data acquired during the CALIPSO space mission (due for launch next May-June).

Matt Pickett

Interests:

Air dispersion modelling of dust emissions from open cut mining and construction sites; LIDAR observations of boundary layer particles.

Research activities:

Environmental Scientist - Air Quality

Details:

710 Hunter St Newcastle West
NSW 2302 Australia
Tel: +61 2 4979 2611
Fax: +61 2 4979 2666
Mobile: 0427 00 4564

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Modified: 20/08/09