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Characterization and radiative impact of dust aerosols over northwestern part of India: a case study during a severe dust storm

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Abstract

The present study focused on examining the impact of a severe dust storm (DS) on aerosol properties over Patiala (30.33°N, 76.4°E), a site located in the northwestern part of India during 20th–23rd March, 2012. On 20th March, average PM10 mass concentration increased abruptly from 182 to 817 µg m−3 along with significant increase in the number density of coarser particles (diameter >0.45 µm). During DS, spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) increases significantly with more increase at longer wavelengths resulting in weak wavelength dependence (AOD at 380 nm increases by ~210 % and at 870 nm by ~270 % on 20th March). Significant decrease in Ångström exponent (AE; α 380–870) from 0.56 to 0.11 and fine-mode fraction (FMF; PM2.5/PM10) from 0.49 to 0.25 indicates dominance of coarser particles over the station. Net short wave (SW) radiation flux has been decreased by ~20 % and single scattering albedo (SSA675) has been increased from 0.86 (19th March) to 0.90 (20th March). This observation is attributed to additional loading of scattering type aerosols on arrival of DS. Wavelength dependence of SSA reverses during DS and it increases with wavelength due to dominance of coarse-mode particles. Atmospheric aerosol radiative forcing (ATM ARF) during DS ranged from +45 to +77 W m−2, consequently heating the lower atmosphere up to 2.2 K day−1. Significant atmospheric heating rate due to severe dust storm may affect the regional atmospheric dynamics and hence the climate system.

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Acknowledgments

The present work was carried out under ISRO-GBP research project and authors are grateful to ISRO for financial support. We also thank to MODIS NASA, OMI and NOAA team for providing the data. We acknowledge the use of National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) for synoptic meteorological data. The meteorological data for Patiala station provided by IMD is duly acknowledged. One of the authors, Mr. Shani Tiwari is also thankful to CSIR for providing senior research fellowship. We are thankful to the two reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Panjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, 147002, India

    Atinderpal Singh & Darshan Singh

  2. Department of Physics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Shani Tiwari & A. K. Singh

  3. Department of Physics, Baba Farid Group of Institutes, Bathinda, Punjab, India

    Deepti Sharma

  4. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (Branch), Prof Ramnath Vij Marg, New Delhi, India

    Suresh Tiwari & Atul Kumar Srivastava

  5. Geosciences Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

    Neeraj Rastogi

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  1. Atinderpal Singh
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  2. Shani Tiwari
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Correspondence to Atinderpal Singh.

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Singh, A., Tiwari, S., Sharma, D. et al. Characterization and radiative impact of dust aerosols over northwestern part of India: a case study during a severe dust storm. Meteorol Atmos Phys 128, 779–792 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-016-0445-1

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