The vertical profile of atmospheric heating rate of black carbon aerosols at Kanpur in northern India

Tripathi, SN and Srivastava, Atul K and Dey, Sagnik and Satheesh, SK and Krishnamoorthy, K (2007) The vertical profile of atmospheric heating rate of black carbon aerosols at Kanpur in northern India. In: Atmospheric Environment, 41 (32). pp. 6909-6915.

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Abstract

Altitude profiles of the mass concentrations of aerosol black carbon (BC) and composite aerosols were obtained from the collocated measurements of these quantities onboard an aircraft, over the urban area of Kanpur, in the Ganga basin of northern India during summer, for the first time in India. The enhancement in the mean BC concentration was observed at $\sim1200m$ in the summer, but the vertical gradient of BC concentration is less than the standard deviation at that altitude. The difference in the BC altitude profile and columnar concentration in the winter and summer is attributed to the enhanced turbulent mixing within the boundary layer in summer. This effect is more conspicuous with BC than the composite aerosols, resulting in an increase in the BC mass fraction $F_{BC}$ at higher levels in summer. This high BC fraction results in an increase in the lower atmospheric heating rate in both the forenoon, FN and afternoon, AN, but with contrasting altitude profile. The FN profile shows fluctuating trend with highest value $2.1Kday^{-1}$ at 300m and a secondary peak at 1200m altitudes, whereas the AN profile shows increasing trend with highest value $1.82Kday^{-1}$ at 1200m altitude.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Atmospheric Environment
Publisher:	Elsevier
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier.
Keywords:	Black carbon profile;Heating rate;Pollution;Northern India
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
Date Deposited:	18 Dec 2008 09:12
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:52
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/16494

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