effect of dust and anthropogenic aerosols on columnar aerosol optical properties over darjeeling (2200 m asl), eastern himalayas, india柱状尘埃和人为气溶胶的影响气溶胶光学特性在大吉岭(2200美国手语),喜马拉雅山脉东部,印度.pdfVIP

Effect of Dust and Anthropogenic Aerosols on Columnar Aerosol Optical Properties over Darjeeling (2200 m asl), Eastern Himalayas, India 1,2,3 2,3,4 1 2 5 Abhijit Chatterjee , Sanjay K. Ghosh , Anandamay Adak , Ajay K. Singh , Panuganti C. S. Devara , Sibaji Raha1,2,3,4* 1 Environmental Sciences Section, Bose Institute, Kolkata, India, 2 Centre for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science, Bose Institute, Darjeeling, India, 3 Centre for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science, Bose Institute, Kolkata, India, 4 Department of Physics, Bose Institute, Kolkata, India, 5 Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, India Abstract Background: The loading of atmospheric particulate matter (aerosol) in the eastern Himalaya is mainly regulated by the locally generated anthropogenic aerosols from the biomass burning and by the aerosols transported from the distance sources. These different types of aerosol loading not only affect the aerosol chemistry but also produce consequent signature on the radiative properties of aerosol. Methodology/Principal Findings: An extensive study has been made to study the seasonal variations in aerosol components of fine and coarse mode aerosols and black carbon along with the simultaneous measurements of aerosol optical depth on clear sky days over Darjeeling, a high altitude station (2200 masl) at eastern Himalayas during the year 2008. We observed a heavy loading of fine mode dust component (Ca2+) during pre-monsoon (Apr – May) which was higher by 162% than its annual mean whereas during winter (Dec – Feb), the loading of anthropogenic aerosol components mainly from biomass burning (fine mo