Dust mapping product

Based on Meteosat-7's MVIRI instrument, this is a sample dust mapping product of the western Sahel zone for 3 March 2004, the same day as the dust storm depicted in the animation above. The product is based on the Infrared Derived Dust Index (IDDI), a 1º x 1º gridded dataset providing an indirect measure of the presence of atmospheric aerosols over the land areas of Africa and parts of the Middle East. The presence of a dust layer reduces the infrared radiance of satellite targets. Yellow shows the highest dust levels, descending down to orange, red, purple, dark blue and finally black for the lowest dust levels. The IDDI was developed at the Laboratoire d'Optique Atmosphérique (LOA) de Lille, at L'Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille in France.