Response of Indian summer monsoon rainfall to remote carbonaceous aerosols at short time scales: Teleconnections and feedbacks.

The effect of atmospheric aerosols on Indian monsoon is one of the scientifically challenging and societally relevant research issues of the recent decades. Past studies have derived inferences mostly based on local emissions and their impacts thereupon. However, more recent studies have shown that the remote effects driven by aerosols elsewhere could also impact the monsoon system on different time scales.

Declining pre-monsoon dust loading over South Asia: Signature of a changing regional climate.

Desert dust over the Indian region during pre-monsoon season is known to strengthen monsoon circulation, by modulating rainfall through the elevated heat pump (EHP) mechanism. In this context, an insight into long term trends of dust loading over this region is of significant importance in understanding monsoon variability. In this study, using long term (2000 to 2015) aerosol measurements from multiple satellites, ground stations and model based reanalysis, we show that dust loading in the atmosphere has decreased by 10 to 20% during the pre-monsoon season with respect to start of this century.