LONG-RANGE TRANSPORT OF SAHARAN DUST OVER EUROPE OBSERVED BY LIDAR AND SUN PHOTOMETERS (EARLINET , AERONET) AND SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS .

A strong dust outbreak over western Europe has been documented by means of lidar and photometer networks and satellite observations (TOMS, METEOSAT, MODIS). We observe distinct layers versus height above different lidar stations with high optical thickness. Depending on their height, these layers present very different properties. A main layer owed a high lidar depolarisation ratio up to 20% and very low angstrom coefficient near 0. Other layers up to 6km showed more mixed aerosol characteristics. We linked this layers and characteristics with the source regions south of Atlas mountain and in the Hoggar area, found from backtrajectories analysis,