Impact of biomass burning on regional aerosol optical properties: A case study over northern India

The present study examines the spatial, seasonal and inter annual variation of biomass burning and its impact on regional aerosol optical properties over Northern India using multi-satellite aerosol observations: Active fire points, AOD (550 nm) and AE (550-860 nm) from MODIS retrievals during January 2003-December 2017 and AAOD (388 nm), SSA (388 nm) and AI from OMI UV retrievals during January 2005-December 2017. Results from MODIS active fire count statistics indicate an increase in the number of fire occurrences (average 1477 fires per year) over India in a period of 15 years (2003-2017). The dominant fire seasons are (i) Pre-monsoon (March to May) accounting to more than 45% and (ii) Post-Monsoon having 24% of total annual fires counts. However, the crop residue burning hotspot region located in Punjab and Haryana, constitutes 26% of the total fires in India. At an average, 15456 (77.08%) fire counts were reported during the paddy season, whereas 3296 (16.44%) fire counts during wheat season respectively. The crop residue burning over the northwest IGP (Punjab) significantly affect the aerosol optical properties locally as well in the downwind regions during post-monsoon season i.e., crop residue fires increased by 4% (170 fires per year) with corresponding AOD, AAOD & AI increased by 8%, 9% & 11% respectively. The satellite observation shows large gradient of aerosol parameters from north-west to south-east along the Himalayan foot-hills which indicates the regional transport of smoke aerosols over the region. This is also supported by ground based AOD observations at four locations (Patiala, Delhi, Dehradun and Kanpur) and Black Carbon measurements at two locations (Patiala and Dehradun). The climatological averaged values of ground based AOD₅₅₀ for Patiala, Delhi, Dehradun and Kanpur are 0.52 ± 0.26, 0.75 ± 0.40, 0.45 ± 0.24 and 0.57 ± 0.29 respectively whereas BC concentrations are 8.43 ± 3.14 μg m^-3 & 3.36 ± 1.26 μg m^-3 for Patiala & Dehradun respectively. Comparison of MODIS derived AOD agrees well with ground based AODs (overall R = 0.86 and RMSE = 0.14). In addition, CALIPSO shows the maximum amount of biomass burning smoke aerosols present within the atmospheric boundary layer and some cases it extending up to 2-3 km altitudes. The smoke aerosol transport pathways originated from crop residue burning were analyzed using Hysplit forward trajectories. The results reveal that majority of smoke aerosols are transported to eastern IGP, central India and adjacent oceanic regions during post-monsoon season.