The many faces of aerosols in the central Mediterranean: what particles deposited from the atmosphere tell us.

This paper shows the differences in composition and provenance of dry particle deposition between two sites (Lecce and Malta) in the Mediterranean basin, both part of the XMed-Dry measurement network. After sampling, aerosol particles were classified using scanning electron microscopy with X-ray fluorescence, and the particle source regions were derived using inverse FLEXPART simulations. The data refer to approximately two years of measurements.

In the samples collected in Lecce, the deposited mass is strongly dominated by mineral dust, while in Malta it is less so, in contrast to the contribution of sea salt, which is an order of magnitude greater here than at the Lecce site. The dust sources at the Lecce site are northern Algeria and Tunisia, while for the Malta site it is Libya.