10th International Aerosol Conference
September 2 - September 7, 2018
America's Center Convention Complex
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Abstract View


Ccn Characteristics Observed at a High Altitude Site in Western Ghats

ARSHITHA ANAND  K.A., R.S. Maheskumar, Banaras HIndu University.

     Abstract Number: 362
     Working Group: Aerosol Physics

Abstract
Atmospheric aerosols which serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) are key elements of hydrological cycle and climate change. In the present work, monthly and seasonal variation of CCN characteristics have been studied at Mahabaleshwar (1348 m AMSL) site in Western Ghats, using one year (December 2014- October 2015) of observations.

The study has been done in two sections first, we have seen how the CCN concentration varies with different supersaturation for different months and seasons during both daytime and nighttime separately. Later monthly and seasonal behavior of diurnal variation of CCN has been studied. CCN concentration shows higher values during both daytime and nighttime. Considering daytime and nighttime separately the monsoon season shows higher concentration during daytime and pre-monsoon shows higher concentration during nighttime. During the winter season, the Anthropogenic aerosols are dominant and due to calm wind during pre-monsoon and winter, the particles are less dispersive so it will be mainly confined to small area covering the study region. The seasonal dust is one the other reason for the increase in CCN concentration during pre-monsoon season. In the monsoon, the CCN concentration shows higher values because of the long range transport from the Arabian sea due to strong south-westernly wind. This result suggest that CCN concentration can be increased because of the emission of the aerosol particle from natural source such as forest, and also it can be increased because of anthropogenic activities. Overall analysis showed that CCN concentration was higher over this high altitude site despite of dominant sink process such as cloud scavenging and washout mechanism indicating local emission.