Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1777160 | Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics | 2010 | 9 Pages |
Abstract
A large aerosol plume with optical depth exceeding 0.7 engulfs most parts of the Arabian Sea during the Asian summer monsoon season. Based on Micro Pulse Lidar observations during the June-September period of 2008 and 2009, the present study depicts, for the first time, the existence of an elevated dust layer occurring very frequently in the altitude band of 1-3.5 km over the west coast of peninsular India with relatively large values of linear depolarization ratio (δL). Large values of δL indicate the dominance of significantly non-spherical aerosols. The aerosol optical depth of this layer (0.2) is comparable to that of the entire atmospheric column during dust-free days. Back-trajectory analysis clearly shows the advection of airmass from the arid regions of Arabia and the west Arabian Sea, through the altitude region centered around 3 km. This is in contrast to the airmass below 1 km originating from the pristine Indian Ocean region which contains relatively spherical aerosols of marine origin with δL generally <0.05.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Geophysics
Authors
Manoj Kumar Mishra, K. Rajeev, Bijoy V. Thampi, K. Parameswaran, Anish Kumar M. Nair,