Spatio-temporal variation in aerosol optical depth and cloud parameters over India retrieved from MODIS satellite data

Aerosols play an important role in cloud formation and subsequent precipitation. In the long run from climatological point of view, the gradually increase aerosol content leads to a change in earth atmosphere, heat balance and radiation balance leading to global warming and subsequent climate change. In the present study the spatial and temporal variations in aerosol particles over India were described. Here we are using moderate resolution imaging spectro radiometer (MODIS) data retrieved from the Terra satellite. High mean Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) values are observed in almost in all regions during all the seasons. The spatial gradient of AOD shows an increase from southern part of Indian sub-continent to Northern part up to the Himalayas. The high AOD values are noticed during the winter and post monsoon seasons for the stations Delhi, Gandhi Nagar and Pune when compared to the other stations. This can be attributed the fact that they are urban, Industrial and coastal station. The correlation between AOD and Cloud fraction was found to be higher than that are coastal stations compared to continental. The correlation between AOD and CF was greater than 0.7 Gandhi Nagar, 0.5 in Visakhapatnam, 0.4 Jaipur and Pune and where as in Delhi, Anantapur, Ranchi and Trivandrum, it is (0.3, 0.3, 0.3 and 0.2) respectively. In this article we obseaverved that the AOD, Water vapor and cloud fraction shown negative correlation for all the five stations over the south India and observed positive correlation in North India for the remaining five stations.