Characterization of aerosols and its radiative impacts over urban and rural environments—a case study from Hyderabad and Srisailam

In the troposphere anthropogenic aerosol emissions are increasing in recent decades, which can influence the earthʹs climate. The present study addresses the characterization of aerosols and their radiative impacts over urban (Hyderabad) and rural (Srisailam) environments by using aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements from MICROTOPS-II sunphotometer. AOD measurements over the urban site showed high values compared to the rural site. Over the urban environment aerosol forcing at the surface is as high as −42 W m−2 and at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is +10 W m−2 whereas at the rural environment aerosol forcing at the surface has been observed to be −11 W m−2 and at TOA it is observed to be +5.7 W m−2. The difference between TOA and the surface forcing over the urban environment is +32 W m−2 and over the rural environment is +5.3 W m−2, which shows the absorption capacity of the respective atmospheres.