Toward new frontiers in understanding the link between dust and climate:DUSTSPEC Workshop: Dust Records for a Changing World; Palisades, New York, 24-26 May 2010

Mineral dust is an active climate system component that may significantly influence the radiative balance of the atmosphere as well as biogeochemical cycles. However, the complex linkages between dust-generating processes and past or anthropogenic climate change are still poorly constrained. The highly successful Dust Indicators and Records of Terrestrial and Marine Palaeoenvironments (DIRTMAP) project, created by Karen Kohfeld (Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada) and Sandy Harrison (University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom) in 2001, provided a compilation of available dust deposition data from climate archives. DIRTMAP focused on a time slice approach, compiling data for modern/Holocene (up to ∼10,000 years ago to the present) conditions and conditions at the Last Glacial Maximum (∼20,000 years ago)