Atmospheric Dust Forced Changes in the Precipitation Distribution Over Indian Homogeneous Regions

In the present study, we have made an effort to examine the influence of dust aerosols on the precipitation over India, and six homogeneous rainfall zones of India during pre-monsoon (March to May) and monsoon (June to September) seasons. In this regard, a set of sensitivity experiments are performe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pure and applied geophysics 2024-08, Vol.181 (8), p.2677-2702
Main Authors: Saxena, Harshita, Pandey, Vivek Kumar, Das, Sushant
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerosol optical depth
Aerosols
Atmospheric particulates
Climate
Climate models
Dust
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Extreme weather
Geophysics/Geodesy
Mean precipitation
Monsoon winds
Monsoons
Optical analysis
Optical thickness
Precipitation
Precipitation distribution
Rainfall
Regional climate models
Regional climates
Seasons
Westerlies
Wind
Wind effects
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Summary:In the present study, we have made an effort to examine the influence of dust aerosols on the precipitation over India, and six homogeneous rainfall zones of India during pre-monsoon (March to May) and monsoon (June to September) seasons. In this regard, a set of sensitivity experiments are performed using a regional climate model, namely, RegCM-4.7.0, for 11 years. Extensive analysis has been carried out to evaluate the model’s performance in simulating the mean precipitation, its variability (spatial and temporal), dust aerosol optical depth, and monsoonal wind. It is observed that the model has the potential to capture the distinct features like prevailing north westerlies with less precipitation during pre-monsoon and southwesterlies with more precipitation during monsoon season, with systematic differences in magnitude while compared against observation. High dust aerosol optical depth is found during pre-monsoon season over central northeast, west central and northeast parts of India. Dust significantly increases precipitation parts over southern peninsula, west central and northwest during the monsoon season due to increases in wind at 850 hPa facilitating moisture transport from Arabian Sea. Interestingly, it is also noticed that dust aerosols modulate the magnitude of extreme precipitation indices over India implying importance in including dust aerosols effects in the climate models.
ISSN:0033-4553
1420-9136
DOI:10.1007/s00024-024-03548-3