Seasonal Characteristics of Aerosol Black Carbon in Relation to Long Range Transport over Tripura in Northeast India

Anirban Guha; Barin Kumar De; Pranab Dhar; Trisanu Banik; Monti Chakraborty; Rakesh Roy; Abhijit Choudhury; Mukunda M. Gogoi; S. Suresh Babu; K. Krishna Moorthy

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2014.02.0029

Seasonal Characteristics of Aerosol Black Carbon in Relation to Long Range Transport over Tripura in Northeast India

Anirban Guha ¹, Barin Kumar De¹, Pranab Dhar¹, Trisanu Banik¹, Monti Chakraborty¹, Rakesh Roy², Abhijit Choudhury¹, Mukunda M. Gogoi³, S. Suresh Babu³, K. Krishna Moorthy³

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¹Department of Physics, Tripura University, Suryamaninagar-799 022, India
²Department of Physics, National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Jirania – 799055, India
³Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram-695022, India

Received: February 11, 2014
Revised: June 17, 2014
Accepted: October 16, 2014
Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2014.02.0029

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Cite this article:
Guha, A., De, B.K., Dhar, P., Banik, T., Chakraborty, M., Roy, R., Choudhury, A., Gogoi, M.M., Babu, S.S. and Moorthy, K.K. (2015). Seasonal Characteristics of Aerosol Black Carbon in Relation to Long Range Transport over Tripura in Northeast India. Aerosol Air Qual. Res. 15: 786-798. https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2014.02.0029

HIGHLIGHTS

Studies on seasonal variation of Black Carbon (BC) over Tripura in Northeast India.
Seasonal variation of alpha absorption coefficient of BC over long term.
Long range transport of BC from Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP).

ABSTRACT

This study presents the characteristics of aerosol black carbon (BC) from a rural continental site, Agartala, located in the North-Eastern part of India using two year measurements from September 2010 to September 2012. Diurnal and seasonal variations are examined in relation to the unique geographical location, changeable meteorological conditions and distinct source characteristics. Winter season is characterized by extremely high BC concentration (17.8 ± 9.2 µg/m³) comparable to those seen in urban environments of India, dropping off to much lower values during the monsoon (2.8 ± 1.7 µg/m³). Even this lowest seasonal mean is rather high, given the rural nature of Tripura. Examination of the spectral dependence of aerosol absorption coefficients indicates that the main source of aerosol to total BC burden at Agartala is the fossil fuel combustions. Concentration weighted trajectory (CWT) analysis indicate that the characteristic high BC during winter is mostly associated with the advection from the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), while the air mass pattern is constricted to the oceanic region during monsoon making BC aloft due to local pollution only.

Keywords: Black Carbon (BC); Absorption coefficients; Aerosol transport; CWT analysis