Columnar aerosol extinction characteristics: measurements from a free-tropospheric observatory in Western-Himalayas

• Main Authors: Gogoi, Mukunda M., Chaubey, Jai Prakash, Sreekanth, V., Kompalli, Sobhan Kumar, Babu, Suresh S., Prabhu, Tushar P., Moorthy, Krishna K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Tribhuvan University, Nepal 2011
• Subjects: QE Geology; Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://repository.ias.ac.in/98740/; http://nepjol.info/index.php/JIE/article/view/5931

Continuous measurements of spectral aerosol optical depths (AOD) were made over a very high altitude aerosol observatory at Hanle (32.76°N, 78.95°E, 4520 m amsl), during the summer and autumn of 2009 and 2010, by using a 10-channel multi-wavelength radiometer (MWR). The results depicted very low values of AOD (with a mean for the measurement period as ~ 0.071 ± 0.003 at 500 nm), but with a spectral dependence that changed with the months from ~ 0.8 to 1.3, with a mean value of ~ 1.01 ± 0.06. The AODs though were in general comparable to those seen over pristine Antarctic environments, are quite significant when we consider the altitude of the station. The details are presented.