Annual Cycle of Aerosol Radiative Forcing over the Northern Indian Ocean

The northern Indian Ocean is a unique natural laboratory to study aerosol impacts on the Earth's radiative balance. While often neglected in aerosol forcing calculations, clouds may significantly impact the monthly mean aerosol-forcing efficiencies and need to be properly taken into account when assessing the climatological consequences of aerosol pollution. A comprehensive Monte Carlo radiative transfer model coupled to the INDOEX aerosol model has been used to quantify the three-dimensional aerosol-cloud radiative interactions in both short- and long-wave domains. The model results have been integrated with monthly-mean AVHRR and MODIS aerosol retrievals to obtain annual cycle of diurnal mean broadband (0.2 to 100 microns) aerosol radiative forcing over the northern Indian Ocean.