Aerosols-climate interactions at the Owens “Dry” Lake, California

- We study the lifting of mineral dust during saltation events.
- We conduct our study at Owens Lake, California.
- Increases in soil moisture may increase dust ejection.
- Mineralogical changes at Owens Lake may modify soil erodibility.

Mineral dust emissions by the various dusty phenomena that initiate saltation are investigated at the Owens “Dry” Lake, one of the largest sources of dust in North America. An unexpected result of our investigation is that within the range of humidity values observed during the measurements, dust lifting increases with soil humidity. We hypothesize that this surprising result is caused by either an increase in the proportion of dust aggregates capable of entering saltation as the humidity increases or an by increase in the efficiency of dust ejection per impacting saltator as soil surface crusts form and break when the humidity increases. Our long-term field project, its initial results, and two hypotheses capable of explaining the increase in dust lifting with humidity are described in this article.