Potential source identification for aerosol concentrations over a site in Northwestern India

Payra, Swagata and Kumar, Pramod and Verma, Sunita and Prakash, Divya and Soni, Manish (2016) Potential source identification for aerosol concentrations over a site in Northwestern India. In: ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH, 169 (A). pp. 65-72.

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Abstract

The collocated measurements of aerosols size distribution (ASD) and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) are analyzed simultaneously using Grimm aerosol spectrometer and MICROTOP II Sunphotometer over Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan in India. The contrast temperature characteristics during winter and summer seasons of year 2011 are investigated in the present study. The total aerosol number concentration (TANC, 0.3-20 mu m) during winter season was observed higher than in summer time and it was dominated by fine aerosol number concentration (FANC < 2 mu m). Particles smaller than 0.8 mu m (at aerodynamic size) constitute similar to 99% of all particles in winter and similar to 90% of particles in summer season. However, particles greater than 2 mu m contribute similar to 3% and similar to 0.2% in summer and winter seasons respectively. The aerosols optical thickness shows nearly similar AOT values during summer and winter but corresponding low Angstrom Exponent (AE) values during summer than winter, respectively. In this work, Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF) analysis is applied to identify locations of sources that influenced concentrations of aerosols over study area in two different seasons. PSCF analysis shows that the dust particles from That Desert contribute significantly to the coarse aerosol number concentration (CANC). Higher values of the PSCF in north from Jaipur showed the industrial areas in northern India to be the likely sources of fine particles. The variation in size distribution of aerosols during two seasons is clearly reflected in the log normal size distribution curves. The log normal size distribution curves reveals that the particle size less than 0.8 pm is the key contributor in winter for higher ANC. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
Publisher:	ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, 360 PARK AVE SOUTH, NEW YORK, NY 10010-1710 USA
Keywords:	Aerosol number concentration; Size distribution; AOT; PSCF
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
Date Deposited:	22 Jan 2016 04:52
Last Modified:	22 Jan 2016 04:52
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/53127

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