A lay epidemiological study on coexistent stress in hypertension: Its prevalence, risk factors, and implications in patients' lives.

Introduction: Hypertension poses a global challenge in terms of morbidity and mortality. Worldwide prevalence of hypertension is over 40%. Management of hypertension targets blood pressure control to prevent disease complications.

Aerosols cause intraseasonal short-term suppression of Indian monsoon rainfall.

Aerosol abundance over South Asia during the summer monsoon season, includes dust and sea-salt, as well as, anthropogenic pollution particles. Using observations during 2000-2009, here we uncover repeated short-term rainfall suppression caused by coincident aerosols, acting through atmospheric stabilization, reduction in convection and increased moisture divergence, leading to the aggravation of monsoon break conditions. In high aerosol-low rainfall regions extending across India, both in deficient and normal monsoon years, enhancements in aerosols levels, estimated as aerosol optical depth and absorbing aerosol index, acted to suppress daily rainfall anomaly, several times in a season, with lags of a few days.

Agricultural susceptibility to monsoon variability: A district level analysis of Maharashtra, India.

Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) variability has always been a feature affecting Indian agriculture. However, nature of this variability is varying in the backdrop of climate change, and as a consequence, agriculture is getting significantly affected and subsequently threatening food security. To address the climate variability, most of the studies conducted so far have focused on a coarse scale such as Central India or Western Ghats.

Contrasting influences of aerosols on cloud properties during deficient and abundant monsoon years.

Direct aerosol radiative forcing facilitates the onset of Indian monsoon rainfall, based on synoptic scale fast responses acting over timescales of days to a month. Here, we examine relationships between aerosols and coincident clouds over the Indian subcontinent, using observational data from 2000 to 2009, from the core monsoon region. Season mean and daily timescales were considered.