AN ASSESSMENT OF SEVERITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AEROSOL PARTICLES DURING PRECIPITATION

Africa is one of the sources of biomass burning emissions. It is estimated that about 6 million tons of fuel per day is consumed in the southern hemisphere. Biomass burning has an important contribution on aerosol particle concentrations in the atmosphere. Efforts have been made to conduct research in Gaborone to monitor the concentration of atmospheric aerosols in atmosphere. These studies were mainly confined to measurement of concentration of aerosols and establishing a relation with determinants such as carbon dioxide concentration, biomass burning, and precipitation among others. However, very little seems to have been done in relating the empirical data to a mathematical model or to study quantitatively the impact of precipitation on the concentration of aerosols larger than 0.3?m in the atmosphere. In this paper we provide an objective criterion for classifying measurements on concentration of atmospheric aerosol particles and build a mathematical model that helps us to understand variations in weekly aerosol concentrations in terms of their severity. We also construct an index of severity which when applied to different seasons under the study period indicates that precipitation significantly scavenges atmospheric aerosols.International Journal of Environment Volume-4, Issue-3, June-August 2015Page: 81-95