Abstract
The collocated measurements of aerosols size distribution (ASD) and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) are analyzed simultaneously using Grimm aerosol spectrometer and MICROTOP II Sunphotometer over Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan in India. The contrast temperature characteristics during winter and summer seasons of year 2011 are investigated in the present study. The total aerosol number concentration (TANC, 0.3–20μm) during winter season was observed higher than in summer time and it was dominated by fine aerosol number concentration (FANC<2μm). Particles smaller than 0.8μm (at aerodynamic size) constitute ~99% of all particles in winter and ~90% of particles in summer season. However, particles greater than 2μm contribute ~3% and ~0.2% in summer and winter seasons respectively. The aerosols optical thickness shows nearly similar AOT values during summer and winter but corresponding low Angstrom Exponent (AE) values during summer than winter, respectively. In this work, Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF) analysis is applied to identify locations of sources that influenced concentrations of aerosols over study area in two different seasons. PSCF analysis shows that the dust particles from Thar Desert contribute significantly to the coarse aerosol number concentration (CANC). Higher values of the PSCF in north from Jaipur showed the industrial areas in northern India to be the likely sources of fine particles. The variation in size distribution of aerosols during two seasons is clearly reflected in the log normal size distribution curves. The log normal size distribution curves reveals that the particle size less than 0.8μm is the key contributor in winter for higher ANC.
Highlights
Aerosols are a major component of our environment and play an important role in the climate of the Earth-atmosphere system by means of their direct and indirect impact on climate (Schwartz et al, 1995)
We identify potential source regions of the factors during the event using Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF), and combine it with particle number concentration for source identification
Summary and Conclusion During an extended study at Jaipur site (450 m amsl), the particle number size distribution and aerosols optical thickness were measured on a continuous basis
Summary
Aerosols are a major component of our environment and play an important role in the climate of the Earth-atmosphere system by means of their direct and indirect impact on climate (Schwartz et al, 1995). Measurement of aerosol particle number size distribution was carried out in many cities of the world i.e. Birmingham (Harrison et al, 1999), Atlanta (Woo et al, 2001), Helsinki (Buzorius et al, 1999, Hussein et al, 2004), Leipzig (Wehner and Wiedensohler, 2003), Pittsburgh (Stanier et al, 2004), Beijing (Wu et al, 2008). These studies showed the seasonal variation with low aerosol number concentration in summer while high during winter
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