I emailed USGS Center for Coastal Geology scientist Gene Shinn, and received this response:

"People usually talk about aerosols, which would cover dust but true aerosols can change from being liquid, like salt dissolved in water or rain but then turns to salt crystals when the water evaporates. So we came up with a word "aeropolvology"; polvo is spanish for dust so we assume it is probably also latin. You know this cold stick and you can say you had a part in it!! Have fun and check the 4 page info sheet on dust in the website below. Gene

http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/african_dust/

(so i guess my pulvology guess wasn't so far off after all )thanks A!!