Real-time retrieval of dust emissions over the UAE desert from seviri thermal bands

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) lies on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula where desert occupies 80 percent of its land making it a major source of dust aerosols throughout the year. In this paper, a neural-network-based model was developed to estimate AERONET Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) over desert as dust indicator from SEVIRI sensor onboard of Meteosat satellite. The developed model is then implemented in a real-time monitoring tool to visualize dust coverage and density over the UAE.