Station-based climatology of aerosols over the Caribbean islands.

We present a climatological study of aerosols in four representative islands’ stations of the Caribbean based on daily mean values of aerosol optical properties for the period 2008-2016. A daily classification of the dominant aerosol type is carried out, exploring the long-term transport of the main types of aerosols from different sources. All stations show a marked annual cycle in aerosol properties. Maximum values of Aerosol Optical Depth occur in summer, coinciding with the annual minimum in the Angstrom Exponent and an increased occurrence of dust. The opposite behavior is observed in winter, due to the predominance of marine aerosols. Marine and dust aerosols are more frequent in the easternmost islands of the Caribbean, and decrease westwards due to an increasing presence of continental and mixture dust aerosols. As a consequence, the westernmost station of Camaguey displays the most heterogeneous composition of aerosols. Backward trajectories indicate that winter marine aeros...