Every year, millions of tonnes of mineral particles from the Sahara desert are carried by the wind to America, the Caribbean and Europe. Desert dust has been crossing the Atlantic for millions of years, injecting nutrients into the eastern Mediterranean, red clays onto the limestone islands of the Caribbean, freshwater diatoms and phytoliths into the tropical and equatorial Atlantic, and iron that periodically triggers red tides in the Gulf of Mexico. The optical characteristics of the dust, size and spatial distribution of the mineral aerosol directly affect the absorption and scattering of solar and terrestrial radiation. Mineral dust also has a huge impact on cloud formation, both in the form of ice particles and droplets, which lead to additional indirect effects on the radiative balance. Detailed data on the size distribution of dust from Africa and its chemical and mineralogical composition is fundamental for: 1) understanding the processes that govern production, transport and removal from the atmosphere; 2) estimating the global importance of these particles in radiative forcing and quantifying the magnitude of warming or cooling; 3) understanding the impact of mineral aerosols on marine organisms and the role of iron present in dust in the ocean carbon cycle (and consequently in atmospheric CO2); and 4) understanding the impact of dust on health and property. Cape Verde is located in an area strongly affected by the transport of dust from the African continent, and has the conditions for the installation of equipment and instruments to characterise and quantify it. Aerosol sampling will be carried out over the course of a year, and the chemical characterisation of the particles will be carried out using elemental analysis by neutron activation (NAA), ion chromatography to determine soluble ions, a thermo-optical system, and analysis of the CO2 released by non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) to determine organic and elemental carbon, and carbonates. The mineralogical composition will be studied by X-ray diffraction, TEM and scanning electron microscopy.The identification of the main sources and origins of the particles sampled in the archipelago will be carried out through the integration of different tools including Principal Component Analysis, Positive Matrix Factors, Chemical Mass Balance, Multilinear Regression Analysis, analysis of the retrograde trajectories of air masses, meteorological data and analysis of aerosol size distribution.The temporal and spatial distribution of pollutant concentrations will be evaluated by a system of transport models. Satellite observations will be used for an integrated analysis and interpretation of the modelling results. The project is a joint initiative of the University of Aveiro (UA) and the Nuclear Technology Institute (ITN), together with the University of Cape Verde (Uni-CV) and with the support of the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO).CVAO is part of a bilateral German-British initiative to carry out long-term surface and ocean observations in the eastern region of the Tropical North Atlantic.The project is linked to the SOLAS programme, the EU-funded TENATSO project (Tropical East.ern North Atlantic Time-Series Observatory) and the German SOPRAN project (Surface Ocean Processes in the Anthropocene).UA and ITN are widely recognised as centres of excellence in atmospheric aerosol research.In recent decades, UA and ITN have developed aerosol sampling and analysis systems and modelling tools, which are now successfully used in various aerosol studies.