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      On the widespread enhancement in fine particulate matter across the Indo-Gangetic Plain towards winter

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          Abstract

          Fine particulate matter (PM 2.5, aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 µm) impacts the climate, reduces visibility and severely influences human health. The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), home to about one-seventh of the world’s total population and a hotspot of aerosol loading, observes strong enhancements in the PM 2.5 concentrations towards winter. We performed high-resolution (12 km × 12 km) atmospheric chemical transport modeling (WRF-Chem) for the post-monsoon to winter transition to unravel the underlying dynamics and influences of regional emissions over the region. Model, capturing the observed variations to an extent, reveals that the spatial distribution of PM 2.5 having patches of enhanced concentrations (≥100 µgm −3) during post-monsoon, evolves dramatically into a widespread enhancement across the IGP region during winter. A sensitivity simulation, supported by satellite observations of fires, shows that biomass-burning emissions over the northwest IGP play a crucial role during post-monsoon. Whereas, in contrast, towards winter, a large-scale decline in the air temperature, significantly shallower atmospheric boundary layer, and weaker winds lead to stagnant conditions (ventilation coefficient lower by a factor of ~4) thereby confining the anthropogenic influences closer to the surface. Such changes in the controlling processes from post-monsoon to winter transition profoundly affect the composition of the fine aerosols over the IGP region. The study highlights the need to critically consider the distinct meteorological processes of west-to-east IGP and changes in dominant sources from post-monsoon to winter in the formulation of future pollution mitigation policies.

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          Most cited references39

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          AERONET—A Federated Instrument Network and Data Archive for Aerosol Characterization

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            Description and evaluation of the Model for Ozone and Related chemical Tracers, version 4 (MOZART-4)

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              Atmospheric brown clouds: impacts on South Asian climate and hydrological cycle.

              South Asian emissions of fossil fuel SO(2) and black carbon increased approximately 6-fold since 1930, resulting in large atmospheric concentrations of black carbon and other aerosols. This period also witnessed strong negative trends of surface solar radiation, surface evaporation, and summer monsoon rainfall. These changes over India were accompanied by an increase in atmospheric stability and a decrease in sea surface temperature gradients in the Northern Indian Ocean. We conducted an ensemble of coupled ocean-atmosphere simulations from 1930 to 2000 to understand the role of atmospheric brown clouds in the observed trends. The simulations adopt the aerosol radiative forcing from the Indian Ocean experiment observations and also account for global increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols. The simulated decreases in surface solar radiation, changes in surface and atmospheric temperatures over land and sea, and decreases in monsoon rainfall are similar to the observed trends. We also show that greenhouse gases and sulfates, by themselves, do not account for the magnitude or even the sign in many instances, of the observed trends. Thus, our simulations suggest that absorbing aerosols in atmospheric brown clouds may have played a major role in the observed regional climate and hydrological cycle changes and have masked as much as 50% of the surface warming due to the global increase in greenhouse gases. The simulations also raise the possibility that, if current trends in emissions continue, the subcontinent may experience a doubling of the drought frequency in the coming decades.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                ojha@prl.res.in
                s.gunthe@iitm.ac.in
                Journal
                Sci Rep
                Sci Rep
                Scientific Reports
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2045-2322
                3 April 2020
                3 April 2020
                2020
                : 10
                : 5862
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0000 8527 8247, GRID grid.465082.d, Space and Atmospheric Sciences division, Physical Research Laboratory, ; Ahmedabad, India
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2315 1926, GRID grid.417969.4, EWRE Division, Department of Civil Engineering, , Indian Institute of Technology Madras, ; Chennai, India
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0491 8257, GRID grid.419509.0, Atmospheric Chemistry Department, , Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, ; Mainz, Germany
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0000 8869 5601, GRID grid.450282.9, Space Physics Laboratory, , Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ; Thiruvananthapuram, India
                [5 ]ISNI 0000 0000 8190 6402, GRID grid.9835.7, Lancaster Environment Centre, , Lancaster University, ; Lancaster, UK
                [6 ]ISNI 0000 0001 1019 6308, GRID grid.440527.0, Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES), ; Nainital, India
                [7 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2157 6568, GRID grid.30064.31, Present Address: Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, , Washington State University, ; Pullman, USA
                Article
                62710
                10.1038/s41598-020-62710-8
                7125076
                32246046
                44421902-3506-455a-b23a-87d752933ba8
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 29 August 2019
                : 9 March 2020
                Categories
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                © The Author(s) 2020

                Uncategorized
                atmospheric chemistry,atmospheric dynamics,atmospheric science,climate change
                Uncategorized
                atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric science, climate change

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