“…21. These strong gradients, including the sharp gradient across the ITCZ, were first noted in measurements made on the pre-INDOEX and INDOEX ship cruises (e.g., Rhoads et al, 1997;Moorthy et al, 1997;Jayaraman et al, 1998Jayaraman et al, , 1999Jayaraman et al, , 2001Satheesh et al, 1998;Naja et al, 1999;Stehr et al, 2002;Quinn et al, 2002;Chand et al, 2001Chand et al, , 2003Kamra et al, 2003;Norman et al, 2003;Nair et al, 2004;Naja et al, 2004), as well as in aircraft observations during INDOEX (e.g., Ramanathan et al, 2001;Reiner et al, 2001;Gabriel et al, 2002a;Pelon et al, 2002;de Reus et al, 2002), and shortly thereafter were corroborated to be a general feature of the broader region based on numerous pieces of evidence, including further in situ observations, satellite retrievals and model simulations (e.g., Rajeev et al, 2000Rajeev et al, , 2004Rajeev and Ramanathan, 2001;Collins et al, 2001Collins et al, , 2002de Laat et al, 2001a, b;Lelieveld et al, 2001;Lawrence et al, 2003a;Minvielle et al, 2004a, b;Moorthy et al, 2005a;Satheesh et al, 2006a, b;Vinoj et al, 2007;Verma et al, 2008). In addition to this generally strong gradient of pollutants in the SAW-ABC, these observations and modeling studies have also shown a very abrupt transition between the polluted NH air masses and more pristine SH air in the MBL at the ITCZ, which can be considered a "chemical ITCZ" …”