The influence of a south asian dust storm on aerosol radiative forcing at a high-altitude station in central Himalayas

The impact of long-range transported dust aerosols, originating from the Thar Desert region, to a high-altitude station in the central Himalayas was studied with the help of micro-pulse lidar (MPL) observations. A drastic change in lidar back-scatter profile was observed on a dust day as compared with that on a pre-dust day. The back-scatter coefficient on a dust day revealed that the dust layer peaked at an altitude ∼1300 m above ground level (AGL) and extended up to ∼3000 m AGL, with maximum value ∼3 × 10–5 m–1 sr–1. Aerosol Index (AI) and air mass back-trajectory analysis substantiate the transport of dust aerosols from the far-off Thar Desert region to the experimental site. A significant effect of dust aerosols was also observed over the station on the spectral aerosol optical depths (AODs), measured using a Microtops-II Sunphotometer. It showed significantly different spectral behaviour of AOD on a dust day as compared with that on a pre-dust day. The Ångström exponent (α) showed a marked decrease from 0.42 to 0.04 from the pre-dust day to the dust day. The aerosol radiative forcing estimated using the Santa Barbara DISORT (discrete ordinate radiative transfer) atmospheric radiative transfer (SBDART) model, in conjunction with the optical properties of aerosol and cloud (OPAC) model, showed values of about –30, –45 and +15 W m–2, respectively, at top-of-atmosphere (TOA), surface and in the atmosphere on the dust day. The positive atmosphere forcing caused an estimated heating of the lower atmosphere by ∼0.4 K da