2026/04/06 by John F. Mejía, Juan J. Henao, John A. Gillies +1 · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Aeolian processes and effects #Atmospheric aerosols and clouds #Climate Change and Geoengineering
paper · doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122008
openalex publication_date 2026/04/06 · openalex created_date 2026/04/07 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Dust emissions from the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (ODSVRA) in coastal central California pose persistent air-quality challenges for downwind communities. Using 14 years of observations (2011–2025), we develop a climatology of PM 10 and associated meteorological regimes, complemented by machine-learning normalization to assess dust-abatement effectiveness. Diurnal and seasonal composites reveal wind regime-dependent control on dust flux, dominated by strong WNW winds and a fall susceptibility pathway linked to reduced emission thresholds following prolonged disturbance. Exceedance analysis shows that violations of the 24-h California PM 10 standard (50 μg m −3 ) peak in April–May, while rare exceedances of the U.S. EPA standard (150 μg m −3 ) occur under westerly winds exceeding the 75th percentile (∼11.2 m s −1 ) at 10 m height within ODSVRA. Random Forest models trained on meteorological predictors estimate that, absent management interventions, PM 10 concentrations would have remained substantially higher, with reductions of 25–35% at the California Department of Forestry (CDF) Arroyo Grande site and 10–20% at the Mesa 2 site near Nipomo–Guadalupe Road in 2025 compared to pre-2017, potentially avoiding 10 federal and 147 state exceedances at CDF between 2018 and 2025. Feature importance analysis identified wind power density as the dominant driver, reinforcing the physical basis of the normalization approach. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of targeted dust-control measures and introduce a transferable, regime-aware framework for managing aeolian emissions under variable meteorological conditions.