Role of mineral dust, soot, and bacteria in cloud and precipitation formation processes over Indian subcontinent using an atmospheric general circulation model

• The microphysical responses IN species over India were analyzed using AGCM.
• Mineral dust, dust with ammonium sulfate, soot and bacteria species are used as IN.
• Different species sulfate dominates in different months in cloud ice production.
• IN species dependent cloud microphysics is of importance to during the winter.
• There is a geographic dependence in the role of different IN species in rainfall.

An aerosol-type specific heterogeneous nucleation parameterization that based on the classical nucleation theory has been implemented into the atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM), ECHAM5. The microphysical responses in precipitation formation to the variation of ice nuclei (IN) species over Indian subcontinent were analyzed using AGCM, considering the immersion freezing nucleation from mineral dust, dust with ammonium sulfate coating, soot and bacteria species. Immersion freezing by bacteria species is found to be dominating in October–December, whereas dust with ammonium sulfate produces more cloud ice in January–March. There are very little differences in cloud ice formation during April–May and June–September among various IN species. There is also a geographic dependence in the role of different IN species in precipitation formation, like bacteria is important in Southern Peninsula and dust particles play a significant role in central India. In nature the emission of ice nucleating active bacteria and non-biological dust, soot into the atmosphere is important and highly dependent on temperature, and precipitation. So it is the worthy of investigation on the role of different kind of aerosols on the microphysics and precipitation processes, the biosphere–atmosphere interaction and climatic research.