Aerosol spectral optical depths over the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean

Satheesh, SK and Moorthy, Krishna K and Das, Indrani (2001) Aerosol spectral optical depths over the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. In: Current Science, 81 (12). pp. 1617-1625.

Preview

PDF pradeep_17.pdf Download (517kB)

Abstract

Comprehensive investigations during the last decade have clearly established that aerosols have a significant impact on the climate. No serious attempts were made to characterize the aerosols over the Bay of Bengal, despite its role in the regional climate system. This paper reports the results of the measurements of aerosol spectral optical depths made over the Bay of Bengal and compares them with those made over the equatorial Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, on-board the oceanographic research vessel, Sagar Kanya during its cruise 161-B in March 2001. The aerosol optical depth was found to decrease with distance from the coast with an exponential scale distance of apprx1000 km for visible wavelengths and apprx1600 km for near infra-red wavelengths. A significant dominance of small particle concentration near the coast is observed both over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The mean aerosol optical depth was higher over the Bay of Bengal compared to the Arabian Sea, at the shorter wavelengths. Over the equatorial Indian Ocean regions, aerosol optical depths were much lower compared to the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal and showed lesser wavelength dependence. The relative dominance of small particles is more over the Bay of Bengal compared to the Arabian Sea. Back-trajectory analysis shows that during the cruise period, the Arabian Sea was mainly influenced by air masses from the countries lying northwest of India, the Bay of Bengal by air masses from the east coast of India and the equatorial Indian Ocean mostly by the west coast and central India. The observed features are compared with long-term climatology of aerosol optical depth observations from the east and west coast of India and an island station in the Arabian Sea.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Current Science
Publisher:	Indian Academy of Sciences
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Indian Academy of Sciences
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
Date Deposited:	30 Jan 2008
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:41
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/12629

Actions (login required)

View Item