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Abstract: Every year during the winter and pre-monsoon periods most of the Indian peninsula, Bay of Bengal and the adjoining Indian Ocean are affected by a polluted regional haze, known as the South Asian Winter Haze (SAWH). This article is the first of a series of three papers collectively anticipated at the central idea of retrieving aerosol component type and effective radius of the SAWH by incorporating experimental data of ground-based solar radiometer into Mie theory, and validation by collocated in-situ measurements. The work presented in this paper provides an approach to retrieve optical depths and their spectral curvature for SAWH at a tropical coastal station, Visakhapatnam (17.7°N, 83.3°E). A dataset comprised of 92 wintertime atmospheric optical depths are obtained from spectral extinction measurements of direct solar flux by means of a Multi-Wavelength Solar Radiometer during the period of October 2002 to February 2004. The inter-channel correlations established a linear relation and the airmass conditions specific to this dataset suggested a two-component linear model; the stable and variable components of which are analysed to obtain the mentioned optical parameters. Results indicate that the spectral curvature is best represented by a Lorentz model with a central wavelength of 0.40425±0.02945μm, a width of 0.40382±0.10253μm, a constant of 0.92623±0.33793, and a wavelength independent component of 0.95778±0.15678. Resonance-like structure of the obtained spectral curvature resembles wavelength dependent extinction characteristic of absorbing soot particles; thereby supports the key findings from INDOEX campaign. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract Multiangle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) is a new aerosol algorithm developed to retrieve aerosol optical depth (AOD) over land using the time series data to dynamically isolate aerosol and land contributions. However, there are still no comprehensive research on the quality of MAIAC AOD over China. In this paper, 1 km MAIAC AOD over China were examined against ground-based measurements to evaluate the performance of the data. In general, Aqua and Terra MAIAC retrievals have a high correlation coefficient (0.924 for Aqua and 0.933 for Terra) with ground-based observations and there are more than 72% of retrievals falling within the Expected Errors (EE = ±(0.05 + 0.2*AOD)). We found that the accuracy of MAIAC AOD is related with the AOD magnitude, aerosol size, seasons and surface types. In spring and summer, the AOD bias was influenced by both aerosol model and surface reflectance estimation. We also found that the aerosol model is the main source of AOD bias over desert regions. These results indicated that the MAIAC AOD could be used as a new aerosol data source for air quality and climate studies in China. Highlights • A comprehensive research was conducted to evaluate the performance of MAIAC aerosol products over China. • The accuracy of MAIAC AOD is related with the AOD magnitude, aerosol size, seasons, and surface types. • Good performance of Aqua and Terra MAIAC retrievals are shown. • The MAIAC AOD bias is mainly influenced by aerosol model in desert regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently released Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Collection 6 introduced a fine scale aerosol optical depth (AOD) distribution, the 3 km product, which is expected to perform well in analyzing aerosols and identifying local air pollution, especially in the severely polluted atmosphere of China. However, few detailed evaluations of regional variations have been conducted. In this paper, we evaluate MODIS 3 km and 10 km AOD products for China against ground-based measurements and compare their performance with respect to spatial and temporal variations. The ground validations indicate that the two products are generally correlated well to ground-based observations. Spatially, the 3 km product slightly outperform the 10 km product in well-developed areas of southern China. Temporally, both products perform worse during spring and summer. Atmospheric clouds and underlying surface are two key factors that influence the accuracy and number of retrievals for both products. The comparison analysis reveals the newly introduced AOD product clearly shows good relationships with the coarse resolution retrievals in spatial and temporal variation but significant differences regarding details. The 3 km AOD product provides better aerosol gradients, more retrievals in bare areas of western China and some spikes of diurnal variation in cloudy days. Seasonal comparisons show the 3 km AOD product is higher than the 10 km product in all seasons, especially during spring and summer. Although the 3 km product for China generally performs slightly worse than the 10 km product, the added information of the MODIS 3 km AOD product shows potential for studying local aerosol characterization, and may facilitate studies of air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a quantitative investigation of the contributions of different aerosols to the aerosol optical depths (AODs) in Taiwan using a global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) and remote sensing measurements. The study focus is on the period from June 2012 to October 2013. Five different types of aerosols are investigated: sea salt, dust, sulfate, organic carbon and black carbon. Three of these aerosols, namely sulfate, organic carbon and black carbon, have significant anthropogenic sources. Model simulation results were compared with both ground based sun photometer measurements and MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite observations. The model data shows good agreement with satellite observations (R = 0.72) and moderate correlation with sun photometer measurements (R = 0.52). Simulation results show the anthropogenic aerosols contribute ∼65% to the total AOD in Taipei, while natural originated aerosols only show a minor impact (∼35%). Among all the aerosols, sulfate is the dominating species, contributing 62.4% to the annual average total AOD. Organic carbon and black carbons respectively contribute 7.3% and 1.5% to the annual averaged total AOD. The annual average contributions of sea salt and dust aerosols to the total AOD are 26.4% and 2.4%, respectively. A sensitivity study was performed to identify the contributions of anthropogenic aerosol sources in each region to the AODs in Taipei. North-East Asia was identified as the major contributing source region of anthropogenic aerosols to Taipei, accounting for more than 50% of total sulfate, 32% of total organic carbon and 51% of total black carbon aerosols. South-East Asia is the second largest contributing source region, contributing 35%, 24% and 34% of total sulfate, organic carbon and black carbon aerosols, respectively. The aerosols from continents other than Asia only show minor impacts to the aerosol load in Taipei. In addition, a case study of a biomass burning episode in South-East Asia during 2013 was investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosols affect the earth's climate system both on a regional as well as on a global scale. Several studies have identified India (the second most populous country) as one of the regional hot spots of aerosols due its increasing anthropogenic activities. The paper presents a temporal (annual and seasonal) study of aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the country using satellite data for thirteen year period (2001–2013). The Indian region is divided into four sub regions i.e., north, west, east and south. The analysis is carried out using Level 3 data from two satellite sensors, namely, MODIS (1° × 1°) and MISR (0.5° × 0.5°), onboard NASA's Terra platform. Annual and seasonal mean AOD variation has been studied. It is found that annual aerosol loading remains highest in Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) in all the years. In winter season, the overall loading is lowest for the entire country while it reaches maximum in the monsoon season. This could be attributed to the relative humidity, wind and associated rainfall patterns in the country. Also, the aerosol tendencies have been computed using the first and last six year period change in aerosol optical depth. Further, annual and seasonal trends in AOD have been calculated using weighted least square regression approach and the results have been compared. Statistically significant trends are reported at 95% confidence level. Weights are assigned corresponding to the expected errors associated with the satellite data. There is a good agreement in the seasonal tendencies and trends computed from both the sensors for winter, monsoon and post-monsoon seasons. Significantly increasing trends are found in winter and post-monsoon seasons which could be due to increase in anthropogenic activities. All the observations are separately reported for ten most populous cities of India. Delhi and Kolkata are amongst the most polluted cities in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the aerosol distribution over Indian subcontinent as represented in 21 models from Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) simulations, wherein model simulated aerosol optical depth (AOD) is compared with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) satellite observations. The objective of the study is to provide an assessment of the capability of various global models, participating in CMIP5 project, in capturing the realistic spatial and temporal distribution of aerosol species over the Indian subcontinent. Results from our analysis show that majority of the CMIP5 models (excepting HADGEM2-ES, HADGEM2-CC) seriously underestimates the spatio-temporal variability of aerosol species over the Indian subcontinent, in particular over Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). Since IGP region is dominated by anthropogenic activities, high population density, and wind driven transport of dust and other aerosol species, MODIS observations reveal high AOD values over this region. Though the representation of black carbon (BC) loading in many models is fairly good, the dust loading is observed to be significantly low in majority of the models. The presence of pronounced dust activity over northern India and dust being one of the major constituent of aerosol species, the biases in dust loading has a great impact on the AOD of that region. We found that considerable biases in simulating the 850 hPa wind field (which plays important role in transport of dust from adjacent deserts) would be the possible reason for poor representation of dust AOD and in turn total AOD over Indian region in CMIP5 models. In addition, aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) underestimated/overestimated in most of the models. However, spatial distribution of ARF in multi-model ensemble mean is comparable reasonably well with observations with bias in magnitudes. This analysis emphasizes the fundamental need to improve the representation of aerosol species in current state of the art climate models. As reported in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth assessment report (AR4), the level of scientific understanding (LOSU) of climatic impact of aerosols is medium-low. For better understanding of short and long term implications of changing concentrations of aerosol species on climate, it is imperative to have a realistic representation of aerosol distribution over regions with high aerosol loading. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper provides an account of observed variations in Black carbon (BC) mass concentrations and BC induced radiative forcing for the first time over a background Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) site, Anmyeon in South Korea. BC concentrations were continuously measured over the site during January 2003–December 2004 periods using an Aethalometer. BC showed higher concentrations during 2003 in majority of the months (except in January, August and October). BC found to be showing higher concentrations in September 2003, with values reaching up to 3μgm−3 over the site. It also showed higher peaks in May and December in 2003. BC values were found to be comparatively less during wet season (July–August; especially august), which could be associated with the rainout and washout associated with the Changma season (summer monsoon). Optical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds (OPAC) model in combination with a radiative transfer model (SBDART) were used to estimate aerosol radiative forcing separately for composite aerosols (total aerosols) and solely for BC aerosols using chemical composition data sets of Total Suspended Particulates (TSP) and BC. The atmospheric forcing for composite aerosols found to be +14.9 to +25.9Wm−2 during spring, +13.4 to +20.4Wm−2 in summer, +12.9 to +19.1Wm−2 in autumn and +16 to +18.2Wm−2 during winter,respectively. The respective BC atmospheric forcings were +8.1 to +11.8Wm−2, +8.4 to +11.1Wm−2, +8.7 to +11.4Wm−2 and +8.8 to +11.7Wm−2 during spring, summer, autumn and winter. The study suggests that BC induced atmospheric forcing can contribute up to 88% of total aerosol induced atmospheric warming. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Aerosol measurements over a tropical semi-arid site in Anantapur (14.62°N, 77.65°E, 331 m asl), India, provide the variabilities of aerosol characteristics for the period of January 2007–December 2008. The mean values of aerosol optical depth at 500 nm (AOD500 nm) over 2-year period are found to be 0.37 ± 0.11, 0.39 ± 0.13 and 0.30 ± 0.10 during winter, summer and monsoon seasons, respectively. A rather systematic variation is seen with AOD peaking in the month of March, falling off gradually to the lowest value in June and increasing slowly superposed with some modulations, which show a weak secondary peak in October. The mean and standard values of the Ångström exponent, α (turbidity coefficient, β), are found to be 1.06 ± 0.33 (0.17 ± 0.05) during winter, 0.97 ± 0.35 (0.22 ± 0.04) during summer and 0.85 ± 0.26 (0.16 ± 0.06) during monsoon. The frequency distribution of α is relatively broad with two modes for dusty (α < 1) and non-dusty (α > 1) situations. This frequency distribution of α reveals a great dispersion of a values in all seasons thus denoting variability in the aerosol-size distribution. In this study, spectral AOD and Ångström exponent data are analyzed to obtain information about the adequacy of the simple use of the Ångström exponent and its variation for characterizing optical properties of aerosols, and exploring possibilities for a more efficient characterization of them. Using the least-squares fit method, the Ångström parameter, α, is calculated in the spectral interval 380–850 nm, along with coefficients a1 and a2 of the second-order polynomial fit to the plotted logarithm of AOD versus the logarithm of wavelength. The correlations between the coefficients a1 and a2 with months and α are discussed in the paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]