Paper detail

Seasonal trend of AOD and Ångström exponent($α)$ over Indian megacities in varying spatial resolution

Aerosol optical characteristics AOD and Ångström exponent is often used to asses environmental aerosol loading. AOD or Aerosol Optical Depth is an indirect measure of atmospheric aerosol loading by means of total extinction of incoming solar radiation due to scattering and absorption whereas Ångström exponent($α)$ is used to get qualitative understanding of aerosol particle size. Analysis of long term time series AOD data reveals how AOD vis-à-vis aerosol on a particular place changes over time. Similar study with Ångström exponent($α)$ gives an idea how particle size distribution is changing over some area. Such studies cannot be conducted by data measured by ground based stations alone because they are inadequate in numbers on earth moreover such data for considerably long period are not available for most places. To overcome this, radiance data sensed by MODIS instruments on board Aqua and Terra satellite have been used by many authors. In this study 13 years of MODIS level 2 data by Terra have been analyzed for four Indian mega-cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai using well known Mann-Kendall statistics and Sen's non-parametric estimation of slopes.