Aerosol chemistry, transport and climatic implications during extreme biomass
burning emissions over Indo-Gangetic Plain

Singh, N. P.; Banerjee, Tirthankar; Raju, M.P.; Deboudt, Karine; Sorek–Hamer, Meytar; Singh, Ram Sarup; Mall, R. K.

doi:10.5194/acp-2018-446

Cited by 5 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The IGP is accompanied with more UV‐absorbing aerosols (spatial mean: 0.74), especially over the upper IGP (>0.75), whereas no such dominance in absorbing aerosols is noted over SEA (spatial mean: 0.07). Presence of absorbing aerosols over upper part of the IGP overlaps well with the region that accounts for the emissions of carbonaceous aerosols from burning of crop residues (Jethva et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2018; Vinjamuri et al., 2020). Spatial variations in AAOD, a reliable indicator of absorbing aerosols, are not evident across IGP and SEA as both the regions account for a low spatial mean (0.06) during haze dominated period.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…However, it should be noted that atmospheric haze was not defined here on a daily basis constrain by the fact that we did not account for ground‐level PM 2.5 concentration and visibility data, and CALIPSO has a revisit period in each 16 days. Across IGP, there are evidences of greater incidence of hazy days with very high aerosol concentration during October to November (Thomas et al., 2019), influenced mainly by the burning of agricultural residues (Jethva et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2018). From December to February, haze episodes are mostly accompanied with the burning of biomass/waste/refuse, that are frequently practiced for residential heating and cooking purposes (Singh et al., 2021b).…”

Section: Data and Experimental Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, over South Asia, the Indo‐Gangetic plain (IGP) bears the highest burden of aerosols (Dey & Di Girolamo, 2011; Kumar et al., 2018; Mhawish et al., 2020); aerosols which are highly diverse (Gautam et al., 2011; Jethva et al., 2005; Mhawish et al., 2017, 2019), dynamic (Dey et al., 2008; Rajput & Sarin, 2014; Singh et al., 2017a) with signature of multiple emissions sources (Chakraborty et al., 2015; Singh et al, 2017b, 2021b). Both observational (Gautam et al., 2011; Jethva et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2018; Vinjamuri et al., 2020) and model simulations (Henriksson et al., 2011; Ojha et al., 2020) indicate the predominance of mineral dust during premonsoon while biomass burning, waste/refuse incineration and residential emissions essentially contribute in postmonsoon and winter months. Also, there are several reports of consistent increase in surface PM 2.5 (Shi et al., 2018) and columnar aerosol loading over IGP, a trend varying from 0.007 years −1 over northern India (Krishna Moorthy et al., 2013) to 0.01–0.04 years −1 over IGP (Dey & Di Girolamo, 2011), with a recent estimate by Kumar et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aerosol Climatology Over South and Southeast Asia: Aerosol Types, Vertical Profile, and Source Fields

et al. 2021

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Aerosol climatology during typical haze dominating period over South and Southeast Asia was explored using several Earth-Observing A-Train satellite products retrieved in between 2010 and 2020. Comparatively high aerosol optical depth (AOD) with dominance of fine and UV-absorbing aerosols are noted across the Indo-Gangetic plain, South Asia (IGP; AOD: 0.58; UVAI: 0.74) against weak UV-absorbing fine aerosols over Southeast Asia (SEA; AOD: 0.26; UVAI: 0.07). Among inland IGP sites, decadal mean AOD resembles in Lahore (0.72 ± 0.45), Delhi (0.81 ± 0.46), Kanpur (0.84 ± 0.42), and Varanasi (0.78 ± 0.45); all exhibiting bimodal AOD distribution with a first peak in early November followed by a second in early January. In contrast, except mainland site Chiang Mai, all SEA maritime cities resemble in having typical September-October AOD peak, with the presence of fine and UV-neutral aerosols. Urban hotspots across IGP and SEA (except Dhaka, Chiang Mai) denote a spatially consistent minor increasing trend in AOD (0.2-1.8 × 10 −2 year −1) while increase in UVAI is more prominent over upper IGP. Dust aerosols dominate only in Karachi (46%) against strong UV-absorbing smoke aerosols over rest of the IGP (71-91%), and UV-neutral smoke aerosols across SEA (84-92%). Vertical stratification of aerosol types is noted across IGP as in lower atmosphere (<4 km) polluted dust/urban aerosols remain abundant, with gradual decrease in dust aerosols from upper to lower IGP and consequent increase in smoke aerosols. At upper atmosphere (>4 km), however, dust aerosols clearly dominate. Over SEA, smoke are the most abundant aerosols across the atmospheric column followed by polluted dust. No evidence of intracontinental transport of aerosols from IGP to Southeast Asia or vice versa is, however, noted. Plain Language Summary Aerosol climatology during typical haze dominating period over two global aerosol hotspots: South and Southeast Asia was explored using several satellite-based aerosol optical properties retrieved using Earth Observing A-Train satellites (Aqua, Aura, CALIPSO). Comparatively high aerosol optical depth with dominance of fine and absorbing aerosol are noted across the Indo-Gangetic plain, South Asia against weak absorbing fine particles over Southeast Asia. Presence of strong absorbing aerosol over Indo-Gangetic plain may have greater implications on regional climate. We note absorbing dust aerosols only over Karachi against strong absorbing smoke aerosols over Lahore, Delhi, Kanpur, Varanasi, and Dhaka, and UV-neutral smoke aerosols over Singapore, Penang, and Kuala Lumpur. Vertical stratification of aerosol types is also noted across IGP as in lower atmosphere (<4km) polluted dust/ polluted urban aerosol remains abundant, with gradual decrease in dust aerosols from upper to lower IGP and consequent increase in smoke aerosols. No evidence in intracontinental transport of smoke aerosols is found, as biomass burning emissions over upper IGP, Kalimantan, and Sumatra primarily modulating climatology of regional aerosols. BAN...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 69%

Section: Data and Experimental Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aerosol Climatology Over South and Southeast Asia: Aerosol Types, Vertical Profile, and Source Fields

et al. 2021

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“…This fully-coupled model represents a significant advancement over the offline WRF-CMAQ system (Byun and Schere, 2006). That is mainly because the former expands to encompass aerosol-radiation interactions to which OBB and OCSB should be closely related Huang et al, 2016;Baró et al, 2017;Li et al, 2017b;Singh et al, 2018;Malavelle et al, 2019). In addition, the newly developed coupler helps to improve the consistency between WRF and CMAQ with regard to meteorological 140 characteristics (Wong et al, 2012).…”

Section: The Two-way Coupled Wrf-cmaq Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative effects of open biomass and crop straw burning on haze formation over central and eastern China: modelling study driven by constrained emissions

Mehmood¹,

Wu²,

Wang³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Open biomass burning (OBB) has large potential in triggering local and regional severe haze with elevated fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations and could thus deteriorate ambient air quality and threaten human health. Open crop straw burning (OCSB), as a critical part of OBB, emits abundant gaseous and particulate pollutants, especially in fields with intensive agriculture, such as central and eastern China (CEC). However, there are high uncertainties in current OCSB and other types of OBB emissions that could drive chemical transport models (CTMs) to fail to evaluate their respective impacts on haze formations accurately. Satellite retrievals provide an attractive alternative that can be used to simultaneously quantify emissions of OCSB and other types of OBB, such as the Fire INventory from NCAR version 1.5 (FINNv1.5), which yet generally underestimate their magnitudes due to unresolved small fires. In this study, we selected June in 2014 as our study period, which exhibited a complete evolution process of OBB (from June 1 to 19) over CEC. During this period, OBB was dominated by OCSB in terms of the number of fire hotspot and associated emissions (74&#8201;~&#8201;94&#8201;%), most of which were located at Henan and Anhui (>&#8201;60&#8201;%) with intensive enhancements from June 5 to 14 (>&#8201;80&#8201;%). It is found that OCSB presented a generally strong spatiotemporal correlation with regional haze over the central part of CEC (Henan, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan), while other types of OBB emissions had certain influences on Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Fujian. Based on these analyses, we established a constraining method that integrates ground PM2.5 measurements with a state-of-art fully coupled regional meteorological and chemical transport model (the two-way coupled WRF-CMAQ) in order to derive optimal OBB emissions based on FINNv1.5. It is demonstrated that these emissions could allow the model to reproduce meteorological and chemical fields over CEC during the study period, whereas original FINNv1.5 underestimated OBB emissions by 2&#8201;~&#8201;7 times, depending on specific spatiotemporal scales. The results show that OBB had substantial impacts on surface PM2.5 concentrations over CEC. Most of OBB contributions were dominated by OCSB, especially in Henan, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan, while other types of OBB emissions also exerted certain influence in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Fujian. With the concentration-weighted trajectory (CWT) method, potential OCSB sources leading to severe haze in Henan, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan were pinpointed. The results illustrated that the OCSB emissions in Henan and Anhui can cause haze not only locally but also regionally through regional transport. Combining with meteorological analyses, we can find that surface weather patterns played a cardinal role in reshaping spatial and temporal characteristics of PM2.5 concentrations. Stationary high-pressure systems over CEC enhanced local PM2.5 concentrations in Henan and Anhui. Then, with the evolution of meteorological patterns, Hubei and Hunan in the low-pressure system were forced to receive the pollution from areas (i.e., Henan and Anhui) enveloped in the high-pressure system. These results highlight that policymakers should strictly undertake interprovincial joint enforcement actions to prohibit irregular OBB, especially OCSB over CEC. By comparison, the constrained OBB emissions can, to a large extent, not only supplement insufficient estimations derived from satellite retrievals but also reduce overestimations of bottom-up methods.

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“…The AAI is calculated using a ratio of satellite-observed top-of-atmosphere radiances at two UV wavelengths to observe the spectral contrast created by aerosol absorption. Past studies have applied the AAI to study biomass burning (e.g., Singh et al, 2018;Vadrevu et al, 2015;Zhuravleva et al, 2017) and dust aerosols (e.g., Badarinath et al, 2010;Huang et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2017). While the AAI is primarily a measure of aerosol absorption, scattering aerosols cause a net decrease in the AAI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Observation‐Based Correction for Aerosol Effects on Nitrogen Dioxide Column Retrievals Using the Absorbing Aerosol Index

Cooper

Martin

Hammer

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Retrievals of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and other trace gases from satellite measurements rely on accurate calculation of an air mass factor (AMF) to account for the atmospheric light path. Scattering and absorption of sunlight by aerosols affects AMFs by impacting the sensitivity of satellite‐observed radiances to NO2 at different altitudes. Current NO2 retrievals either do not explicitly account for these effects or rely on aerosol information from an external source. Here we investigate a method for quantifying the impact of aerosols on NO2 AMFs using the Absorbing Aerosol Index, a satellite‐based measure of light absorption and scattering by aerosols. We find a robust relationship between the Absorbing Aerosol Index and the aerosol correction to NO2 AMFs using the GEOS‐Chem chemical transport model and the LIDORT radiative transfer model. This relationship enables estimating the impact of aerosols on AMFs using observed Absorbing Aerosol Index values, thus yielding an observation‐based aerosol correction for NO2 retrievals.

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Aerosol chemistry, transport and climatic implications during extreme biomass burning emissions over Indo-Gangetic Plain

Abstract: 13The large-scale emissions of airborne particulates from burning of agricultural residues particularly 14 over the upper Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) have often been associated with frequent formation of haze, 43Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi

Cited by 5 publications

References 28 publications

Aerosol Climatology Over South and Southeast Asia: Aerosol Types, Vertical Profile, and Source Fields

Aerosol Climatology Over South and Southeast Asia: Aerosol Types, Vertical Profile, and Source Fields

Relative effects of open biomass and crop straw burning on haze formation over central and eastern China: modelling study driven by constrained emissions

An Observation‐Based Correction for Aerosol Effects on Nitrogen Dioxide Column Retrievals Using the Absorbing Aerosol Index

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