T. A. Rajesh

Contribution of natural and anthropogenic aerosols to optical properties and radiative effects over an urban location

A method to determine the contribution of natural and anthropogenic aerosol species to aerosol radiative forcing using surface-based, columnar and vertical profile measurements, optical properties and radiative transfer models is outlined. Aerosol optical properties and radiative fluxes measured during 2008 over Ahmedabad, an urban city located in western India are utilized. Mid-visible aerosol optical depth (AOD) does not show a strong seasonal variation, while ?, the ?ngstr?m exponent, exhibits significant seasonal variation. ? is higher during winter and post-monsoon, when fine mode aerosols are dominant, while ? is lower during pre-monsoon and monsoon, when coarse mode aerosols are abundant. The contribution of mineral dust to the total aerosol mass is higher than 55% as the study location is in a semi-arid region. Natural aerosols (mineral dust and sea salt) dominate the aerosol mass concentration, while anthropogenic aerosols (water soluble aerosols and black carbon) dominate the aerosol optical depth. The percentage contribution of black carbon to the net atmospheric forcing is larger than 65% throughout the year, corroborating that black carbon aerosol is a strong contributor to global warming on regional scales. Black carbon aerosols contribute 50% or more to the aerosol radiative forcing at the surface, thus, significantly contributing to solar dimming. The large atmospheric warming and the surface forcing due to black carbon aerosols can influence the hydrological cycle. Results emphasize that aerosol radiative forcing is governed more by aerosol optical properties (aerosol optical depth and single scattering albedo) rather than their mass, and there exists no linear relation between mass, optical depth and radiative effects of different aerosol species. These results and the relationship can be used to delineate the anthropogenic influence of aerosols from their natural counterpart, because anthropogenic aerosols in the fine mode (lower mass) give rise to higher AOD, lower SSA, higher aerosol radiative forcing, while natural aerosols which are in the coarse mode (higher mass) give rise to lower AOD, higher SSA and lower aerosol radiative forcing.

Characteristics and source apportionment of black carbon aerosols over an urban site

Aethalometer based source apportionment model using the measured aerosol absorption coefficients at different wavelengths is used to apportion the contribution of fossil fuel and wood burning sources to the total black carbon (BC) mass concentration. Temporal and seasonal variabilities in BC mass concentrations, equivalent BC from fossil fuel (BCff), and wood burning (BCwb) are investigated over an urban location in western India during January 2014 to December 2015. BC, BCff, and BCwb mass concentrations exhibit strong diurnal variation and are mainly influenced by atmospheric dynamics. BCff was higher by a factor of 2–4 than BCwb and contributes maximum to BC mass throughout the day, confirming consistent anthropogenic activities. Diurnal contribution of BCff and BCwb exhibits opposite variation due to differences in emission sources over Ahmedabad. Night time BC values are about a factor of 1.4 higher than day time BC values. The annual mean percentage contributions of day time and night time are 42 and 58 %, respectively. BC, BCff, and BCwb mass concentrations exhibit large and significant variations during morning, afternoon, evening, and night time. During afternoon, mass concentration values are minimum throughout the year because of the fully evolved boundary layer and reduced anthropogenic activities. BC exhibits a strong seasonal variability with postmonsoon high (8.3 μg m−3) and monsoon low (1.9 μg m−3). Annual mean BCff and BCwb contributions are 80 and 20 %, respectively, to total BC, which suggests that major contribution of BC in Ahmedabad comes from fossil fuel emissions. The results show that the study location is dominated by fossil fuel combustion as compared to the emissions from wood burning. The results obtained represent a regional value over an urban regime which can be used as inputs on source apportionment to model BC emissions in regional and global climate models.