The properties of aerosols present in the atmosphere are often influenced by the environment in which they are being disbursed. Subsequently, the variation in the environmental conditions may severely affect the aerosol size and distribution. Thus it is quite exciting to investigate the spatial and temporal variations of AOD that are being affected by the significant changes in the environment to a large extent. This paper presents preliminary observations of diurnal variation of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) over two distinct locations in Kannur, India. The AOD over a location which has strong marine influence shows the presence of coarse particles while that on a valley of Western Ghats reveals the combined influences of both land and the ocean. The correlation between AOD measured from the ground and that retrieved from MODIS is fairly good. The AODs retrieved from ground based observation is validated with that estimated from MODIS in the context of meteorological parameters observed during the period of this observation.
Y. Kaufman, “Smoke Cloud and Radiation Experiment in Brazil (SCAR-B),” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 103, No. D24, 1998, pp. 31783-31808. doi:10.1029/98JD02281
R. J. Charlson, S. E. Schwartz, J. M. Hales, R. D. Cess, J. A. Coakley Jr., J. E. Hansen and D. Hoffmann, “Climate Forcing by Anthropogenic Aerosols,” Science, Vol. 255, No. 5043, 1992, pp. 423-440. doi:10.1126/science.255.5043.423
M. O. Andreae, “In World Survey of Climatology, Future Climates of the World,” In: A. Henderson-Sellers, Ed., Elsevier, New York, Vol. 16, 1995, pp. 341-392.
Y. J. Kaufman, D. Tanre and O. Boucher, “A Satellite View of Aerosols in the Climate System,” Nature, Vol. 419, No. 6903, 2002, pp. 215-223. doi:10.1038/nature01091
U. Lohmann and J. Feichter, “Global Indirect Aerosol Effects: A Review,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2005, pp. 715-737. doi:10.5194/acp-5-715-2005
D. A. Hegg, P. V. Hobbs, S. Gasso, J. D. Nance and A. L. Rango, “Aerosol Measurements in the Artic Relevant to Direct and Indirect Radiative Forcing,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 101, No. 9, 1996, pp. 23349- 23363. doi:10.1029/96JD02246
J. M. Haywood, D. L. Roberts, A. Slingo, J. M. Edwards and K. Shine, “General Circulation Model Calculations of the Direct Radiative Forcing by Anthropogenic Sulphate and Fossil Fuel Soot Aerosol,” Journal of Climate, Vol. 10, No. 7, 1997, pp. 1562-1577. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010 2.0.CO;2
D. Muller, U. Wandinger and A. Ansmann, “Microphysical Particle Parameters from Extinction and Backscatter Lidar Data by Inversion with Regularization: Theory,” Applied Optics, Vol. 38, No. 12, 1999, pp. 1981- 1999.
R. Kumar, S. S. Srivastava and K. M. Kumari, “Characteristics of Aerosols over Suburban and Urban Site of Semiarid Region in India: Seasonal and Spatial Variation,” Aerosol and Air Quality Research, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2007, pp. 531-549.
K. K. Moorthy, S. K. Satheesh and K. Murthy, “Characteristics of Spectral Optical Depths and Size Distributions of Aerosols over Tropical Oceanic Regions,” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Vol. 60, No. 10, 1998, pp. 981-992. doi:10.1016/S1364-6826(98)00044-3
B. H. Subbaraya, A. Jayaraman, K. K. Moorthy and M. Mohan “Atmospheric Aerosol Studies under ISRO- GBP,” J. Ind. Geophys. Un, Vol. 4, 2000, pp. 77-90.
P. C. S. Devara, G. Pandithurai, P. E. Raj and S. Sharma, “Investigations of Aerosol Optical Depth Variations Using Spectroradiometer at an Urban Station, Pune, India,” Journal of Aerosol Science, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1996, pp. 621-632. doi:10.1016/0021-8502(95)00550-1
K. K. Moorthy, S. K. Satheesh and B. V. Krishna Murthy, “Investigations of Marine Aerosols over the Tropical Indian Ocean,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 102. No. D15, 1997, pp. 18827-18842. doi:10.1029/97JD01121
K. Parameswaran, P. R. Nair, R. Rajan and M. V. Ramana, “Aerosol Loading in Coastal and Marine Environments in the Indian Ocean during Winter Season,” Current Science India, Vol. 91, 1999, pp. 1053-1061.
P. Pant, P. Hegde, U. C. Dumka, A. Saha, M. K. Srivastava and R. Sagar, “Aerosol Characteristics at a High Altitude Location during ISRO-GBP Land Campaign-II,” Current Science India, Vol. 76, 2006, pp. 947- 955
A. Jayaraman, “Aerosol Radiation Cloud Interactions over the Tropical Indian Ocean Prior to the Onset of the Summer Monsoon,” Current Science India, Vol. 81, No. 11, 2001, pp. 1437-1445.
K. K. Moorthy, K. Niranjan, B. Narasimhamurthy, V. V. Agashe and B. V. Krishna Murthy, ISRO-GBP Scientific Report 03-99, 1999.
S. S. Moorthy, S. K. Satheesh, K. K., Babu and C. B. S. Dutt, “Integrated Campaign for Aerosols, Gases and Radiation Budget (ICARB): An Overview,” Journal of Earth System Science, Vol. 117, No. 1, 2008, pp. 243- 262. doi:10.1007/s12040-008-0029-7
N. L. Sharma, J. C. Kuniyal, M. Singh, M. Sharma and R. P. Guleria, “Characteristics of Aerosol Optical Depth and ?ngstr?m Parameters over Mohal in the Kullu Valley of Northwest Himalayan Region,” India Acta Geophysica, Vol. 59, No. 2, 2011, pp. 334-360. doi:10.2478/s11600-010-0046-1
K. Rajeev, V. Ramanathan and J. Meywerk, “Regional Aerosol Distribution and Its Long Range Transport over the Indian Ocean,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 105, No. D2, 2000, pp. 2029-2043. doi:10.1029/1999JD900414
F. Li and V. Ramanathan, “Winter to Summer Monsoon Variation of Aerosol Optical Depth over the Tropical Indian Ocean,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 107, No. D16, 2002, p. 4284. doi:10.1029/2001JD000949
S. K. Nair, K. Rajeev and K. Parameswaran, “Wintertime Regional Aerosol Distribution and the Influence of Continental Transport over the Indian Ocean,” Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2003, pp. 149-165. doi:10.1016/S1364-6826(02)00215-8
V. Ramanathan, P. J. Crutzen, J. Lelieveld, A. P. Mitra, D. Althausen, J. Anderson, M. O. Andreae, W. Cantrell, G. R. Cass, C. E. Chung, A. D. Clarke, J. A. Coakley, W. D. Collins, W. C. Conant, F. Dulac, J. Heintzenberg, A. J. Heymsfield, B. Holben, S. Howell, J. Hudson, A. Jayaraman, J. T. Kiehl, T. N. Krishnamurti, D. Lubin, G. McFarquhar, T. Novakov, J. A. Ogren, I. A. Podgorny, K. Prather, K. Priestley, J. M. Prospero, P. K. Quinn, K. Rajeev, P. Rasch, S. Rupert, R. Sadourny, S. K. Satheesh, G. E. Shaw
S. K. Satheesh, V. Ramanathan, X. L. Jones, J. M. Lobert, I. A. Pod-gorny, J. M. Prospero, B. N. Holben and N. G. Loeb, “A Model for the Natural and Anthropogenic Aerosols for the Tropical Indian Ocean Derived from Indian Ocean Experiment Data,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 104, No. D22, 1999, pp. 27421-27440. doi:10.1029/1999JD900478
S. K. Satheesh and K. K. Moorthy, “Radiative Effects of Natural Aerosols: A Review,” Atmospheric Environment, Vol. 39, No. 17, 2005, pp. 2089-2110. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.12.029
F. Vachon, A. Royer, M. Aube, B. Toubbe, N. T. O’Neill and P. M. Teillet, “Remote Sensing of Aerosols over North American Land Surfaces from POLDER and MODIS Measurements,” Atmospheric Environment, Vol. 38, No. 21, 2004, pp. 3501-3515. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.01.046
A. ?ngstr?m, “Techniques of Determining the Turbidity of the Atmosphere,” Tellus, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1961, pp. 214-223.
G. L. Schuster, O. Dovobik and B. N. Holben, “Angstrom Exponent and Bimodal Aerosol Size Distribution,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 111, 2006, Article ID: D07207. doi:10.1029/2005JD006328
T. F. Eck, B. N. Holben, J. S. Reid, O. Dubovik, N. T. O’Neil and S. Kinnie, “Wavelength Dependence of the Optical Depth of Biomass Burning, Urban and Desert Dust Aerosols,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 103, 1999, pp. 31333-31349. doi:10.1029/1999JD900923
Z. D. Adeyewa and E. E. Balogun, “Wavelength Dependence of Aerosol Optical Depth and the Fit of the ?ngstr?m Law,” Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Vol. 74, No. 1-2, 2003, pp. 105-122. doi:10.1007/s00704-002-0707-3
I. Ichoku, R. Levy, Y. J. Kaufman, L. A. Remer, R. R. Li, V. J. Mar-tins, B. N. Holben, N. Abuhassan, I. Slutsker, T. F. Eck and C. Pietras, “Analysis of the Performance Characteristics of the Five-Channel Microtops II Sun Photometer for Measuring Aerosol Optical Thickness and Precipitable Water Vapor,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 107, No. D13, 2002, p. 4179. doi:10.1029/2001JD001302
I. A. Remer, et al., “The MODIS Aerosol Algorithm, Products and Validation,” Journal of Atmospheric Science, Vol. 62, 2005, pp. 947-973. doi:10.1175/JAS3385.1
A. K. Prasad, S. Singh, S. S. Chauhan, M. K. Srivasthava, R. P. Singh and R. Singh, “Aerosol Radiative Forcing over the Indo-Gangetic Plains during Major Dust Storms,” Atmospheric Environment, Vol. 41, 2007, pp. 6289-6301. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2007.03.060