The spatial and temporal variations in aerosols and precursor gases over oceanic regions have special importance in the estimation of radiative forcing parameters and thereby in the refinement of general circulation models. Extensive observations of the columnar aerosol optical depth (AOD), total column ozone (TCO) and precipitable water content (PWC) have been carried out using the on-line, multi-band solar radiometers onboard ORV Sagar Kanya (Cruise # SK 147B) over Bay of Bengal during 11th–28th August 1999. Aerosol optical and physical properties (optical depth and angstrom parameter) have been estimated at six wavelengths covering from UV to NIR (380–1020 nm) while TCO and PWC have been determined using the UV band around 300 nm and NIR band around 940 nm, respectively. Added, concurrent meteorological and satellite observations during this field phase of BOBMEX-99 have been utilized to investigate spectral-temporal variations of AOD, TCO and PWC in marine environment.

The results indicate lower AODs (around 0.4 at characteristic wavelength of 500 nm) and size distributions with abundance of coarse-mode particles as compared to those aerosols of typical land origin. An interesting result that is found in the present study is the significant reduction in AOD at all wavelengths from initial to later part of observation period due to cloud-scavenging and rain-washout effects as well as signature of coastal aerosol loading. The clear-sky daytime diurnal variation of TCO shows gradual increase during post-sunrise hours, broad maximum during afternoon hours and gradual decrease during pre-sunset hours, which is considered to be due to photochemical reactions. The diurnal variation curve of PWC showed maximum (~ 4 cm) during morning hours and gradual decrease (~ 3.5 cm) towards evening hours, which are found to be greater as compared to typical values over land. Another interesting feature observed is that although the PWC values are very high, there was no proportionate or appreciable enhancement in AOD—a feature that can be utilized to infer composition of aerosols over the study region.

With the launch of the German Aerospace Agency's (DLR) Modular Opto-electronic Scanner (MOS) sensor on board the Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS-P3) launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in March 1996, 13 channel multi-spectral data in the range of 408 to 1010 nm at high radiometric resolution, precision, and with narrow spectral bands have been available for a variety of land, atmospheric and oceanic studies. We found that these data are best for validation of radiative transfer model and the corresponding code developed by one of the authors at Space Applications Centre, and called ATMRAD (abbreviated for ATMospheric RADiation). Once this model/code is validated, it can be used for retrieving information on tropospheric aerosols over ocean or land. This paper deals with two clear objectives, viz.,

The data validation procedure essentially involves

The results show that the model performance is satisfactory and a relationship between the spectral parameters of MOS radiances and aerosol optical thickness can be established. In this communication, we present the details of the experiments conducted, database, validation of the ATMRAD model and development of the relationship between AOT and MOS radiance.

This paper reports the evolution of rain drop size distribution (DSD) during bright band (BB) and no-BB (NBB) conditions of low intensity rainfall events as observed by a vertically pointing Micro Rain Radar (MRR) over Pune (18.58°N, 73.92°E), India. The BB is identified by enhanced radar reflectivity factor 𝑍 (dBZ) at the 0°C isotherm. The gradient of hydrometeor fall velocity is found to be a good indicator in identifying the melting layer when enhanced radar reflectivity at melting layer is not prominent. The storm structures as observed by the MRR are compared with CloudSat observations that provide evidence of ice hydrometeor at ∼−60°C with clear indication of BB at 0°C. Storm heights at warmer than 0°C are evident during NBB conditions from CloudSat. This suggests that warm rain processes are responsible for producing rain during NBB conditions. During BB conditions, bimodal DSDs below the melting layer are observed at lower altitudes. The DSDs of shallow warm precipitating systems of NBB conditions are monomodal at all the altitudes. Significantly, normalized DSDs are found to be bimodal for BB conditions, and monomodal for NBB conditions which confirm different dominant microphysical processes. It is found that the observed bimodal DSDs during BB conditions are mainly due to the collision, coalescence and break-up processes. During NBB conditions, number and size of large raindrops grow while reaching the ground without much breakup. The radar reflectivity and rainfall intensity 𝑅 ($mmh^{−1}$) relationship of the form 𝑍 = $aR^b$ are found out for BB and NBB conditions. Existing different microphysical processes lead to large coefficient in the $Z–R$ relationship with small exponent during BB conditions while during NBB conditions the coefficients are small with large exponents.