Impact of aerosols and reactive trace gases concentrations in India

Abstract

The current scenario united the elite professionals, researchers and scientists throughout the globe to accelerate the sharing of scientific findings making the future brighter on mother Earth. The concentration of reactive trace gases in the atmosphere modulates the human health appreciably. This study presents the changes of aerosol and reactive gases load in the atmosphere from the recent past with the help of CAMS data in Indian domain. Reactive trace gases and aerosols (NO2, O3, SO2, CO & AOD) are now being recognised as having both positive and negative radiative forcing effects. The effects of changes have been studied and found that the concentration of chemically reactive gases and aerosols load  drop down from their 17 years long period average (LPA) appreciably (60-70 %) over IGP and 35-40 % in other parts of India except O3 (Increase 20-30 %) in India during the month of April-2020.

It is observed that the results are agrees quite well with the actual recorded data of CPCB stations located at 12 different places of India. The difference observed between actual observations and CAMS reanalysis during April -2019 & 2020 show that aerosol load in terms of PM-2.5 & PM-10 is appreciably drop down (60-70 %) over IGP and 25-30 % in other parts of India. The concentration of other reactive gases (NO2, SO2 &CO) also drops down about 32 %, 7 %, 17 % over IGP and 16 %, 8 %, 9 % in other parts of India respectively. The concentration of Ozone shows slightly positive behaviour over IGP and negative at other parts of India.  

Few pockets of Central and South of India show higher concentration may due to ongoing essential activities of cluster of industries or delayed slowdown. The other reason may be the influx of moisture due to the pre-monsoon thunder storm activity during this period. Vertical air flow Omega (positive) at 850 hPa NCEP/NCAR reanalysis also support the confinement of gases at lower levels. This study is further brought out a message for future that we should use the natural resources judiciously as their long term consumption can cause severe health problems and a psychological burden or stress globally during this COVID-19 spread period.