Environ Sci Pollut Res Int
October 2024
Soil moisture (SM) interconnects various components of the Earth system and drives the land-atmosphere feedbacks and food production. However, around 40% of global vegetated land experiences SM drying. India is one of the global hotspots of land-atmosphere interactions and an extensively agrarian economy, but underexplored in terms of SM dynamics and its ramifications on food security.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTropospheric ozone (TPO) is considered as a "near-term climate forcer", whose impact on climate depends on its radiative forcing (RF), which is a change in the Earth's energy flux. Here, we use the ground-based and satellite measurements during the period 2005-2020 to deduce the trends of TPO, which is significantly positive in the tropical and extra-tropical northern hemisphere (0.2-0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Pollut Res Int
August 2024
The Thar is the most densely populated desert in the world, which supports diverse ecosystems and human endeavours such as agriculture and socioeconomic activities. Water demand and supply in the Thar play an essential role in regulating the socioeconomic activities of the region. Inland water and precipitation aid the movement of water in the Thar Desert.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere are substantial changes in the global drylands owing to climate change and anthropogenic activities. However, this aspect is not adequately explored in the context of recent climate change and global warming. Therefore, we analyse the role of water vapour in driving precipitation and corresponding surface greenness in the global deserts using satellite measurements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe devastating effects of COVID-19 pandemic have widely affected human lives and economy across the globe. There were significant changes in the global environmental conditions in response to the lockdown (LD) restrictions made due to COVID-19. The direct impact of LD on environment is analysed widely across the latitudes, but its secondary effect remains largely unexplored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtmospheric pollution is a serious problem in many countries, including India, and it is generally considered as an urban issue. To fill the knowledge gap about particulate pollution and its adverse health effects in rural India for well-informed region-specific policy interventions, we present new insights on the rural pollution of India in terms of PM. Here, we analyse PM pollution and its associated health burden in rural India using satellite and reanalyses data for the period 2000-2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Third Pole (TP) is a high mountain region in the world, and is well-known for its pristine environment, but recent development activities in the region have degraded its air quality. Here, we investigate the spatial and temporal changes of the air pollutants ammonia (NH₃), sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and carbon monoxide (CO) in TP, and reveal their sources using satellite measurements and emission inventory. We observe a clear seasonal cycle of NH in TP, with high values in summer and low values in winter.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtmospheric pollution in the Arctic has been an important driver for the ongoing climate change there. Increase in the Arctic aerosols causes the phenomena of Arctic haze and Arctic amplification. Our analysis of aerosol optical depth (AOD), black carbon (BC), and dust using ground-based, satellite, and reanalysis data in the Arctic for the period 2003-2019 shows that the lowest amount of all these is found in Greenland and Central Arctic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndian Ocean has been undergoing rapid warming in recent years, which increases the likelihood of Marine heatwave (MHW). MHWs are extreme warm ocean surface conditions in which temperature exceeds the 95th percentile for three or more consecutive days. We investigate MHW events occurred in Arabian Sea (AS) and Bay of Bengal (BoB) during pre-monsoon for 1982-2021 period, their impact on Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and net primary productivity (NPP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe analyse the long-term (1980-2020) changes in aerosols over the Third Pole (TP) and assess the changes in radiative forcing (RF) using satellite, ground-based and reanalysis data. The annual mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) varies from 0.06 to 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecently, South Eastern Arabian Sea (SEAS) experiences recurrent winter blooms of green Noctiluca scintillans with serious ecological consequences. Here, the analysis of green N. scintillans blooms in SEAS for the past three consecutive years (2018-2021) is presented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 lockdown (LD) provided a unique opportunity to examine the changes in regional and global air quality. Changes in the atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) during LD warrant a thorough analysis as CO is a major air pollutant that affects human health, ecosystem and climate. Our analysis reveals a decrease of 5-10% in the CO column during LD (April-May 2020) compared to the pre-lockdown (PreLD, March 2020) periods in regions with high anthropogenic activity, such as East China (EC), Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), North America, parts of Europe and Russia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal oceanic regions are rapidly changing in terms of their temperature, oxygen, heat content, salinity and biogeochemistry. Since the biogeochemistry of the oceans is important and pivotal for global food production, and a major part of the world population relies on marine resources for their daily life and livelihood, it is imperative to monitor and find the spatio-temporal changes in the primary productivity of oceans. Here, we estimate the changes in Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and Net Primary Productivity (NPP) in the north Indian Ocean (NIO) basins of Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea for the period 1998-2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCarbon Monoxide (CO) is not a greenhouse gas (GHG), but has the capacity to change atmospheric chemistry of other GHGs such as methane and ozone, and therefore indirectly affects Earth's radiative forcing of the GHGs and surface temperature. Here, we use the CO mixing ratio at 850 hPa from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) reanalysis and the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) satellite measurements for the period 2005-2019 to examine the spatio-temporal changes in CO across the latitudes. We find a substantial decrease in global CO, about -0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnthropogenic emissions have produced significant amount of carbon dioxide (CO) in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. High levels of atmospheric CO increases global temperature as CO absorbs outgoing longwave radiation and re-emits. Though a well-mixed greenhouse gas, CO concentration is not uniform in the atmosphere across different altitudes and latitudes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccurate estimation of carbon cycle is a challenging task owing to the complexity and heterogeneity of ecosystems. Carbon Use Efficiency (CUE) is a metric to define the ability of vegetation to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. It is key to understand the carbon sink and source pathways of ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArabian Sea (AS) experiences Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) blooms during winter and early spring (November-March) mainly due to the changes induced by seasonally reversing monsoon winds and associated processes. The seasonal blooms exhibit distinct regional patterns in their onset, duration, intensity and peak period. Recent changes in ocean dynamics and plankton composition have inflicted adverse effects in the distribution of Chl-a concentration in AS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe direct effect of pandemic induced lockdown (LD) on environment is widely explored, but its secondary impacts remain largely unexplored. Therefore, we assess the response of surface greenness and photosynthetic activity to the LD-induced improvement of air quality in India. Our analysis reveals a significant improvement in air quality marked by reduced levels of aerosols (AOD, -19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Process Impacts
December 2022
India is a country with more than 67% of its population (947 million) residing in rural areas and 33% in urban areas (472 million) as of 2020. Therefore, health of the people living in rural India is very important for its future development plans, economy and growth. Here, we analyse the rural air quality using satellite measurements of NO in India, as the sources of NO are well connected to the industrial and economic uplift of a nation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtmospheric CO is the key Greenhouse Gas in terms of its global warming potential and anthropogenic sources. Therefore, it is important to analyze the changes in the concentration of atmospheric CO to monitor regional and global climate change. Here, we use ground-based and satellite measurements for the 2002-2020 period to assess CO over India.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Pollut Res Int
November 2022
India relies heavily on coal-based thermal power plants to meet its energy demands. Sulphur dioxide (SO) emitted from these plants and industries is a major air pollutant. Analysis of spatial and temporal changes in SO using accurate and continuous observations is required to formulate mitigation strategies to curb the increasing air pollution in India.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to anthropogenic activities enhances regional and global temperatures. The most abundant GHG, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Process Impacts
March 2022
The discovery of causal structures behind a phenomenon under investigation has been at the heart of scientific inquiry since the beginning. Randomized control trials, the gold standard for causal analysis, may not always be feasible, such as in the domain of climate sciences. In the absence of interventional data, we are forced to depend only on observational data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA comprehensive analysis of the temporal evolution of tropospheric ozone in Antarctica using more than 25 years of surface ozone and ozonesonde measurements reveals significant changes in tropospheric ozone there. It shows a positive trend in ozone at the surface and lower and mid-troposphere, but a negative trend in the upper troposphere. We also find significant links between different climate modes and tropospheric ozone in Antarctica and observe that changes in residual overturning circulation, the strength of the polar vortex, and stratosphere-troposphere exchange make noticeable variability in tropospheric ozone.
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