Climate Exchange

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Climate implications of atmospheric

warming due to aerosol black carbon

over the Indian region

S. Suresh Babu and K. Krishna Moorthy, Space Physics Laboratory,

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre; S.K. Satheesh, Centre for Atmospheric and

Oceanic Sciences and Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science; and

P.P. Nageswara Rao, Indian Space Research Organization Headquarters

he importance of black carbon (BC) aerosols, a by-prod-

uct of all low-temperature combustion processes, in

significantly altering the radiation balance of the Earth-

Atmosphere system through strong, wide-spectral absorption and

impacting the regional and global climate has been well recog-

nized in the recent years.

Extensive measurements as part of national and international field

campaigns as well as network observatories and global/regional

climate model simulations are being carried out to characterize BC,

its abundance, vertical distribution, contribution to atmospheric

ealth

warming, albedo change, glacier/snow melting and

to assess its implications for climate and the environ-

ment. In India these studies have been spearheaded by

the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), under

the Aerosol Radiative Forcing over India (ARFI) project

of its Geosphere Biosphere Program (ISRO-GBP) with

active participation from a large number of research and

academic institutions. An appraisal of BC aerosol research

in India suggests that while this topic witnessed signifi-

cant advancement during the past decade, a number of

important climate-relevant issues are still at large.

Source: ARFI

The ORV Sagar Kanya (top left) with its specialist aerosol laboratory (bottom left). The right-hand panels show the spatial distribution of BC over

oceanic regions around India during W_ICARB and ICARB