Study of successive contrasting monsoons (2001–2002) in terms of aerosol variability over a tropical station Pune, India

Abstract

Abstract. The present study confirms that aerosols play a major role in cloud formation and affect significantly the precipitation over a regional scale. The study here shows that there is a high variability of aerosol index during a bad monsoon year 2002 indicating an extension of cycle to more than 100 days from a normal 50 day cycle of absorbing and non- absorbing aerosols over a tropical urban station Pune. Pre-monsoon 2002 shows a high loading of coarse mode aerosols (absorbing aerosols) which indicates vertical and horizontal temperature variations in turn affecting the seasonal rainfall at a regional scale. Cloud formation highly depends on aerosol concentration, where surface meteorological features are essential to initiate the process. The surface temperatures were high during the pre-monsoon of 2002 as compared to 2001. The effect of wind speed though, complicated to understand, reveal low values in 2002 with high aerosol optical depth and vice versa in 2001.