Elevated aerosol layer over South Asia worsens the Indian droughts.

ABSTRACT: Droughts have become more severe and recurrent over the Indian sub-continent during the second half of the twentieth century, leading to more severe hydro-climatic and socio-economic impacts over one of the most densely populated parts of the world. So far, droughts have mostly been connected to circulation changes concomitant with the abnormal warming over the Pacific Ocean, prevalently known as "El Niño". Here, exploiting observational data sets and a series of dedicated sensitivity experiments, we show that the severity of droughts during El Niño is amplified (17%) by changes in aerosols. The model experiments simulate the transport of boundary layer aerosols from South Asian countries to higher altitudes (12-18 km) where they form the Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer (ATAL) (~ 60-120°E,

SUBMITTER: Fadnavis S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6635485 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature