Latitudinal and longitudinal variation in aerosol characteristics from Sun photometer and MODIS over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea during ICARB

Spatial variations in aerosol optical properties as function of latitude and longitude are analysed over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea during ICARB cruise period of March-May 2006 from in situ sun photometer and MODIS (Terra, Aqua) satellite measurements. Monthly mean 550nm aerosol optical depths (AODs) over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea show an increase from March to May both in spatial extent and magnitude. AODs are found to increase with latitude from 4 degrees N to 20 degrees N over the Bay of Bengal while over Arabian Sea, variations are not significant. Suit photometer and MODIS AODs agree well within +/- 1 sigma variation. Bay of Bengal AOD (0.28) is higher than the Arabian Sea (0.24) latitudinally. Aerosol fine mode fraction (FMF) is higher than 0.6 over Bay of Bengal, while FMF in the Arabian Sea is about 0.5. Bay of Bengal alpha(similar to 1) is higher than the Arabian Sea value of 0.7, suggesting the dominance of fine mode aerosols over Bay of Bengal which is corroborated by higher FMF values over Bay of Bengal. Air back trajectory analyses suggest that aerosols from different source regions contribute differently to the optical characteristics over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.