The optical and physical properties of atmospheric aerosols over the Indian Antarctic stations during southern hemispheric summer of the International Polar Year 2007–2008

The properties of background aerosols and their dependence on meteorological, geographical and human influence are examined using measured spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD), total mass concentration ( M T ) and derived number size distribution (NSD) over two distinct coastal locations of Antarcti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annales Geophysicae
Main Authors: J. P. Chaubey, K. Krishna Moorthy, S. Suresh Babu, V. S. Nair
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2011
Subjects:
Q
IPY
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-29-109-2011
https://doaj.org/article/e7c18c27412e4d75b834a98090dc99cc
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Summary:The properties of background aerosols and their dependence on meteorological, geographical and human influence are examined using measured spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD), total mass concentration ( M T ) and derived number size distribution (NSD) over two distinct coastal locations of Antarctica; Maitri (70° S, 12° E, 123 m m.s.l.) and Larsemann Hills (LH; 69° S, 77° E, 48 m m.s.l.) during southern hemispheric summer of 2007–2008 as a part of the 27th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica (ISEA) during International Polar Year (IPY). Our investigations showed comparable values for the mean columnar AOD at 500 nm over Maitri (0.034±0.005) and LH (0.032±0.006) indicating good spatial homogeneity in the columnar aerosol properties over the coastal Antarctica. Estimation of Angstrom exponent α showed accumulation mode dominance at Maitri (α~1.2±0.3) and coarse mode dominance at LH (0.7±0.2). On the other hand, mass concentration ( M T ) of ambient aerosols showed relatively high values (≈8.25±2.87 μg m −3 ) at Maitri in comparison to LH (6.03±1.33 μg m −3 ).