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Climate change has great significance in Asia in general, and India in particular; and atmospheric aerosols have a decisive role in this. The climate forcing potential of aerosols is closely linked to their optical, microphysical and chemical properties. Systematic efforts to characterize these properties over the Indian region started about 5 decades ago, and evolved over the years through concerted efforts in the form of long-term scientific programmes as well as concerted fields experiments. All these have resulted in this activity becoming one of the most vibrant fields of climate research in India and have brought several important issues in the national and international foci. The field experiment, RAWEX--GVAX (Regional Aerosol Warming Experiment--Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment), conducted during 2011-12 jointly by the US Department of Energy, Indian Space Research Organization and Department of Science and Technology, has emerged as a direct outcome of the above efforts. This overview provides a comprehensive account of the development of aerosol--climate research in India and south Asia, and the accomplishment and newer issues that warranted the above field campaign. Details of RAWEX--GVAX, the major outcomes and the subsequent and more recent efforts are presented, followed by the way forward in this field for the next several years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to a series of articles about the regional aerosol warming experiment - Ganges Valley aerosol experiment (RAWEX-GVAX) published within the issue is presented.

An extensive field study, RAWEX--GVAX, was carried out during a 10-month (June 2011-March 2012) campaign at ARIES, Nainital and observations on a wide range of parameters like physical and optical properties of aerosols, meteorological parameters and boundary layer evolution were made. This work presents results obtained from high-frequency (four launches per day), balloon-borne observations of meteorological parameters (pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction). These observations show wind speed as high as 84 m/s near the subtropical jet. It is shown that reanalysis wind speeds are in better agreement at 250 hPa (altitude of subtropical jet) than those above or below this value (100 hPa or 500 hPa). These observations also demonstrate that AIRS-derived temperature profiles are negatively biased in the lower altitude region, whereas they are positively biased near the tropopause. WRF simulated results are able to capture variations in temperature, humidity and wind speed profile reasonable well. WRF and AIRS-derived tropopause height, tropopause pressure and tropopause temperature also show agreement with radiosonde estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the measurements of cloud-base height variations over Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Science, Nainital (79.45°E, 29.37°N, 1958 m amsl) obtained from Vaisala Ceilometer, during the nearly year-long Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment (GVAX). The cloud-base measurements are analysed in conjunction with collocated measurements of rainfall, to study the possible contributions from different cloud types to the observed monsoonal rainfall during June to September 2011. The summer monsoon of 2011 was a normal monsoon year with total accumulated rainfall of 1035.8 mm during June-September with a maximum during July (367.0 mm) and minimum during September (222.3 mm). The annual mean monsoon rainfall over Nainital is 1440 ± 430 mm. The total rainfall measured during other months (October 2011-March 2012) was only 9% of that observed during the summer monsoon. The first cloud-base height varied from about 31 m above ground level (AGL) to a maximum of 7.6 km AGL during the summer monsoon period of 2011. It is found that about 70% of the total rain is observed only when the first cloud-base height varies between surface and 2 km AGL, indicating that most of the rainfall at high altitude stations such as Nainital is associated with stratiform low-level clouds. However, about 25% of the total rainfall is being contributed by clouds between 2 and 6 km. The occurrences of high-altitude cumulus clouds are observed to be only 2-4%. This study is an attempt to fill a major gap of measurements over the topographically complex and observationally sparse northern Indian region providing the evaluation data for atmospheric models and therefore, have implications towards the better predictions of monsoon rainfall and the weather components over this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The RAWEX-GVAX field campaign has been carried out from June 2011 to March 2012 over a high altitude site Manora Peak, Nainital (29.4°N; 79.2°E; 1958 m amsl) in the central Himalayas to assess the impacts of absorbing aerosols on atmospheric thermodynamics and clouds. This paper presents the preliminary results of the observations and data analysis of the Doppler Lidar, installed at Nainital. Strong updrafts with vertical winds in the range of ~2-4 ms-1 occurred during the daytime and throughout the season indicating thermally driven convection. On the other hand during nighttime, weak downdrafts persisted during stable conditions. Plan Position Indicator scan of Doppler Lidar showed north-northwesterly winds in the boundary layer. The mixing layer height, derived from the vertical velocity variance, showed diurnal variations, in the range ~0.7-1 km above ground level during daytime and very shallow during nighttime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aerosol mass concentrations over several Indian regions have been simulated using the online chemistry transport model, WRF-Chem, for two distinct seasons of 2011, representing the pre-monsoon (May) and post-monsoon (October) periods during the Indo-US joint experiment 'Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment (GVAX)'. The simulated values were compared with concurrent measurements. It is found that the model systematically underestimates near-surface BC mass concentrations as well as columnar Aerosol Optical Depths (AODs) from the measurements. Examining this in the light of the modelsimulated meteorological parameters, we notice the model overestimates both planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) and surface wind speeds, leading to deeper mixing and dispersion and hence lower surface concentrations of aerosols. Shortcoming in simulating rainfall pattern also has an impact through the scavenging effect. It also appears that the columnar AODs are influenced by the unrealistic emission scenarios in the model. Comparison with vertical profiles of BC obtained from aircraft-based measurements also shows a systematic underestimation by the model at all levels. It is seen that concentration of other aerosols, viz., dust and sea-salt are closely linked with meteorological conditions prevailing over the region. Dust is higher during pre-monsoon periods due to the prevalence of north-westerly winds that advect dust from deserts of west Asia into the Indo-Gangetic plain. Winds and rainfall influence sea-salt concentrations. Thus, the unrealistic simulation of wind and rainfall leads to model simulated dust and sea-salt also to deviate from the real values; which together with BC also causes underperformance of the model with regard to columnar AOD. It appears that for better simulations of aerosols over Indian region, the model needs an improvement in the simulation of the meteorology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]