Declining pre-monsoon dust loading over South Asia: Signature of a changing regional climate

Desert dust over the Indian region during pre-monsoon season is known to strengthen monsoon circulation, by modulating rainfall through the elevated heat pump (EHP) mechanism. In this context, an insight into long term trends of dust loading over this region is of significant importance in understan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2017-11, Vol.7 (1), p.16062-10, Article 16062
Main Authors: Pandey, Satyendra K., Vinoj, V., Landu, K., Babu, S. Suresh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/35/823
704/106/35/824
Aerosols
Dust
Ground stations
Heat exchangers
Humanities and Social Sciences
Monsoons
multidisciplinary
Rainfall
Satellites
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Wind
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Summary:Desert dust over the Indian region during pre-monsoon season is known to strengthen monsoon circulation, by modulating rainfall through the elevated heat pump (EHP) mechanism. In this context, an insight into long term trends of dust loading over this region is of significant importance in understanding monsoon variability. In this study, using long term (2000 to 2015) aerosol measurements from multiple satellites, ground stations and model based reanalysis, we show that dust loading in the atmosphere has decreased by 10 to 20% during the pre-monsoon season with respect to start of this century. Our analysis reveals that this decrease is a result of increasing pre-monsoon rainfall that in turn increases (decreases) wet scavenging (dust emissions) and slowing circulation pattern over the Northwestern part of the sub-continent.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-16338-w