Kishcha et al. (2025) Effect of Desert Dust Intrusion on the Detection of Marine Heatwaves

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Remote Sensing
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-24
• Authors: Pavel Kishcha, Boris Starobinets
• DOI: 10.3390/rs18010048

Research Groups

Not explicitly stated in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study investigates the impact of desert dust intrusion on marine heatwave (MHW) detection using satellite microwave (MW) and infrared (IR) sea surface temperature (SST) data, revealing that MW SST is unaffected by dust while IR SST is significantly compromised, leading to MHW detection failures and underestimation in combined datasets.

Objective

• To investigate the effect of desert dust intrusion on the detection of marine heatwaves (MHWs) in the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) by separately using microwave (MW) and infrared (IR) satellite radiometry of nighttime sea surface temperature (SST).

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Eastern Mediterranean
• Temporal Scale: Daily variations; detection of multi-day marine heatwave events.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not explicitly stated; the study relies on observational data analysis.
• Data sources:
  • Microwave (MW) satellite radiometry of nighttime sea surface temperature (SST-MW).
  • Infrared (IR) satellite radiometry of nighttime sea surface temperature (SST-IR).
  • Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) measurements.
  • Multiscale Ultrahigh Resolution (MUR) Global Foundation SST analysis (an integrated MW and IR dataset).

Main Results

• Observational evidence indicates no effect of dust intrusion on MHW detection by SST-MW, even when aerosol optical depth (AOD) ranged from 0.3 to 5.
• SST-IR was incapable of detecting MHWs in the presence of strong dust intrusion (AOD up to 5).
• An inverse correspondence was found between daily variations in SST-IR and AOD, indicating that desert dust profoundly influenced SST-IR, causing erroneous daily variations that prevented MHW detection.
• Even weak dust intrusion (AOD ranging from 0.3 to 0.4) prevented SST-IR from detecting MHWs due to erroneous short-term sharp drops in SST-IR caused by high-altitude dust.
• The incapability of SST-IR to detect MHWs during dust intrusion led to an underestimation of MHW presence in SST datasets that integrate MW and IR radiometry, such as the MUR Global Foundation SST analysis.

Contributions

• Provides the first observational evidence demonstrating the differential impact of desert dust intrusion on marine heatwave detection using separate microwave and infrared satellite sea surface temperature data.
• Highlights the robustness of microwave-based sea surface temperature measurements for marine heatwave detection during significant dust events.
• Reveals critical limitations and erroneous detections by infrared-based sea surface temperature measurements, even under weak dust conditions.
• Identifies a significant source of underestimation for marine heatwave presence in integrated microwave and infrared sea surface temperature products.

Funding

Not explicitly stated in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Kishcha2025Effect,
  author = {Kishcha, Pavel and Starobinets, Boris},
  title = {Effect of Desert Dust Intrusion on the Detection of Marine Heatwaves},
  journal = {Remote Sensing},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/rs18010048},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18010048}
}