Preliminary results from the Nainital AMF study

Description

The first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1) has been operating at Nainital, India, since June 2011. Several months of data from the aerosol observing system, meteorology, radiative transfer, and cloud properties are now available. Here we present some preliminary analysis of the observations of aerosol physical and optical characterization and radiation measurements. The analysis will focus on the observations before monsoon, during the monsoon, and post-monsoon at the site. The various options of using the aerosol measurements to determine the brown carbon fraction from the available total absorption measurements at this site, the episodes of high absorption at this site and then prevailing meteorological conditions during these periods and the diurnal patterns will be presented. We will try to answer the question about the aerosol optical depth measured at this site and the contribution of black carbon, brown Carbon and dust. Measurements of radiation will be used to constrain the estimates in addition to the aerosol measurements.