Winter monsoon variation of lower tropospheric aerosol layers at a tropical coastal station, Trivandrum (8°33' N, 77°E), India
Abstract
Tropospheric aerosols play an important role in cloud physics and radiative transfer process. They show a high degree of variability in their characteristics both in space and time. The features of the background aerosol at any location or region depend to a large extent on the local source regions and various meteorological parameters at the time of measurement. Apart from the natural sources in and around the observatory station, anthropogenic additions of aerosols also affect the radiation budget and chemical composition. Besides this, it is realized in recent years that aerosols generated at one place could be transported over long distances by the wind systems and produce consequent effects at locations much farther away from the source. Such transported aerosols may settle as stratified layers in the atmosphere typically in the altitude of 1 to 4 km. These aerosol layers will have important effect in the local climate and atmospheric environment because of their role in radiative transfer process and cloud physics. Lidar observations had been conducted to study the long-range transport of aerosol and their effect at tropical station, Trivandrum during the northern winter period of 2002-2004. The presence of aerosol layers was observed on many days below 4 km during the above period. The high extinction coefficient is observed in the layer region and typically it is found to be 3.4 x 10-4 m-1. The aerosol optical depth is calculated by integrating the extinction values in the aerosol layer region and it is found to be between 0.25 and 0.35. The plausible reasons for the formation of these layers were explained using the wind circulation pattern and air back trajectories.
- Publication:
-
35th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004cosp...35.1972S