scholarly journals Supplementary material to "Mixing state of refractory black carbon aerosol in the South Asian outflow over the northern Indian Ocean during winter"

Author(s):  
Sobhan Kumar Kompalli ◽  
Surendran Nair Suresh Babu ◽  
Krishnaswamy Krishnamoorthy ◽  
Sreedharan Krishnakumari Satheesh ◽  
Mukunda M. Gogoi ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 9173-9199
Author(s):  
Sobhan Kumar Kompalli ◽  
Surendran Nair Suresh Babu ◽  
Krishnaswamy Krishna Moorthy ◽  
Sreedharan Krishnakumari Satheesh ◽  
Mukunda Madhab Gogoi ◽  
...  

Abstract. Regional climatic implications of aerosol black carbon (BC), which has a wide variety of anthropogenic sources in large abundance, are well recognized over South Asia. Significant uncertainties remain in its quantification due to a lack of sufficient information on the microphysical properties (its concentration, size, and mixing state with other aerosol components) that determine the absorption potential of BC. In particular, the information on the mixing state of BC is extremely sparse over this region. In this study, the first observations of the size distribution and mixing state of individual refractory black carbon (rBC) particles in the South Asian outflow to the south-eastern Arabian Sea and the northern and equatorial Indian Ocean regions are presented based on measurements using a single particle soot photometer (SP2) aboard the Integrated Campaign for Aerosols, gases, and Radiation Budget (ICARB-2018) ship during winter 2018 (16 January to 13 February). The results revealed significant spatial heterogeneity of BC characteristics. The highest rBC mass concentrations (∼938±293 ng m−3) with the highest relative coating thickness (RCT; the ratio of BC core to its coating diameters) of ∼2.16±0.19 are found over the south-east Arabian Sea (SEAS) region, which is in the proximity of the continental outflow. As we move to farther oceanic regions, though the mass concentrations decreased by nearly half (∼546±80 ng m−3), BC still remained thickly coated (RCT∼2.05±0.07). The air over the remote equatorial Indian Ocean, which received considerable marine air masses compared to the other regions, showed the lowest rBC mass concentrations (∼206±114 ng m−3) with a moderately thick coating (RCT∼1.73±0.16). Even over oceanic regions far from the landmass, regions that received the outflow from the more industrialized east coast/the Bay of Bengal had a thicker coating (∼104 nm) compared to regions that received outflow from the west coast and/or peninsular India (∼86 nm). Although different regions of the ocean depicted contrasting concentrations and mixing state parameters due to the varied extent and nature of the continental outflow as well as the atmospheric lifetime of air masses, the modal parameters of rBC mass–size distributions (mean mass median diameters ∼ 0.19–0.20 µm) were similar over all regions. The mean fraction of BC-containing particles (FBC) varied in the range of 0.08–0.12 (suggesting significant amounts of non-BC particles), whereas the bulk mixing ratio of coating mass to rBC mass was highest (8.31±2.40) over the outflow regions compared to the remote ocean (4.24±1.45), highlighting the role of outflow in providing condensable material for coatings on rBC. These parameters, along with the information on the size-resolved mixing state of BC cores, throw light on the role of sources and secondary processing of their complex mixtures for coatings on BC under highly polluted conditions. Examination of the non-refractory sub-micrometre aerosol chemical composition obtained using the aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ACSM) suggested that the overall aerosol system was sulfate-dominated over the far-oceanic regions. In contrast, organics were equally prominent adjacent to the coastal landmass. An association between the BC mixing state and aerosol chemical composition suggested that sulfate was the probable dominant coating material on rBC cores.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sobhan Kumar Kompalli ◽  
Surendran Nair Suresh Babu ◽  
Krishnaswamy Krishnamoorthy ◽  
Sreedharan Krishnakumari Satheesh ◽  
Mukunda M. Gogoi ◽  
...  

Abstract. Regional climatic implications of aerosol black carbon (BC) are well recognized over South Asia, which has a wide variety of anthropogenic sources in a large abundance. Significant uncertainties remain in its quantification due to lack of sufficient information on the microphysical properties (its concentration, size, and mixing state with other aerosol components), which determine the absorption potential of BC. Especially the information on mixing state of BC is extremely sparse over this region. In this study, first-ever observations of the size distribution and mixing state of individual refractory black carbon (rBC) particles in the south Asian outflow to Southeastern Arabian Sea, northern and equatorial Indian Ocean regions are presented based on measurements using a single particle soot photometer (SP2) aboard the ship cruise of the Integrated Campaign for Aerosols, gases, and Radiation Budget (ICARB-2018) during winter-2018 (16 January to 13 February). The results revealed significant spatial heterogeneity of BC characteristics. Highest rBC mass concentrations (~ 938 ± 293 ng m−3) with the highest relative coating thickness (RCT; the ratio of BC core to its coating diameters) of ~ 2.16 ± 0.19 are found over the Southeast Arabian Sea (SEAS) region, which is in the proximity of the continental outflow. As we move to farther oceanic regions, though the mass concentrations decreased by nearly half (~ 546 ± 80 ng m−3), BC still remained thickly coated (RCT ~ 2.05 ± 0.07). The air over the remote equatorial Indian Ocean, which received considerable marine air masses compared to the other regions, showed the lowest rBC mass concentrations (~ 206 ± 114 ng m−3), with a moderately thick coating (RCT ~ 1.73 ± 0.16). Even over oceanic regions far from the landmass, regions which received the outflow from more industrialized east coast/the Bay of Bengal had thicker coating (~ 104 nm) compared to regions that received outflow from the west coast/peninsular India (~ 86 nm). Although different regions of the ocean depicted contrasting concentrations and mixing state parameters due to varying extent and nature of the continental outflow as well as the atmospheric lifetime of air masses, the modal parameters of rBC mass-size distributions were similar over all the regions. The observed mono-modal distribution with mean mass median diameters (MMD) in the range of 0.19–0.20 μm suggested mixed sources of BC. The mean fraction of BC containing particles (FBC) varied in the range 0.20–0.28 (suggesting significant amounts of non-BC particles), whereas the bulk mixing ratio of coating mass to rBC mass was highest (8.77 ± 2.77) over the outflow regions compared to the remote ocean (4.29 ± 1.54) highlighting the role of outflow in providing condensable material for coating on rBC. These parameters, along with the information on size-resolved mixing state of BC cores, throw light on the role of sources and secondary processing of their complex mixtures for coating on BC under highly polluted conditions. Examination of the non-refractory sub-micrometre aerosol chemical composition obtained using the aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ACSM) suggested that the overall aerosol system was sulfate dominated over the far-oceanic regions. In contrast, organics were equally prominent adjacent to the coastal landmass. Association between the BC mixing state and aerosol chemical composition suggested that sulfate was the probable dominant coating material on rBC cores.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 2259-2273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xia Qu ◽  
Gang Huang

Abstract Based on models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the present study investigates the South Asian high (SAH) change in response to global warming. Under global warming, the selected 16 coupled general circulation models all feature an elevation of geopotential height at 100 hPa to the south of the SAH climatological position; an easterly response is found over the northern Indian Ocean in all the models, while a westerly response is found over subtropical Asia. The ridges of the SAH shift equatorward in 75% of models. Using the linear baroclinic model, it is found that the combined effects of latent heating and the mean advection of stratification change (MASC) are mainly responsible for those responses. The MASC mainly leads to the aforementioned easterly and westerly responses; the latent heating contributes to the geopotential height response and the easterly response over the northern Indian Ocean. The most important intermodel diversity is found in the 100-hPa circulation change under global warming, accounting for more than half of the total intermodel variance. The intermodel spread of latent heating and the MASC are important factors in driving the 100-hPa circulation diversity. Furthermore, analysis shows that the projected uncertainties in humidity, vertical velocity, and global mean temperature change are the three most important sources of intermodel diversity for the 100-hPa circulation change.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijayakumar S. Nair ◽  
Jayachandran Venugopalan Nair ◽  
Sobhan Kumar Kompalli ◽  
Mukunda M. Gogoi ◽  
S. Suresh Babu

Abstract. Extensive measurements of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and condensation nuclei (CN) concentrations in the South Asian outflow to the northern Indian Ocean were carried out on board an instrumented research vessel, as part of the Integrated Campaign for Aerosols, gases and Radiation Budget (ICARB) during winter season (January–February 2018). Measurements include a north-south transect across the South Asian plume over the northern Indian Ocean and east–west transect over the equatorial Indian Ocean (~ 2° S), which is far away from the continental sources. South Asian outflow over the northern Indian Ocean is characterized by the high values of CCN number concentration (~ 5000 cm−3), low CCN activation efficiency (~ 25 %) and steep increase in CCN concentration with an increase in supersaturation. In contrast, low CCN concentration (~ 1000 cm−3) with flat supersaturation spectra was found over the equatorial Indian Ocean. The CCN properties exhibited significant dependence on the geometric mean diameter (GMD) of the aerosol number size distribution and CCN activation efficiency decreased to low values (


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