Relationship between column aerosol optical thickness and in situ ground based dust concentrations over Barbados

Aerosol optical depth measurements over Barbados acquired through the AERON ET network are analyzed. Optical depth shows a pronounced seasonal pattern, with a maximum observed during summer. The temporal trends of the sunphoto metry data were similar to those of ground-based dust concentration measure ments. A simple linear regression relationship has been established between mean monthly values of aerosol optical depth and dust concentrations (corr elation coefficient r=0.93), which allows the estimation of optical depth f or any specific time period when dust concentration measurements are availa ble. The robustness of the regression was validated with an independent dat a set.