Theme-B - Black Carbon and Aerosols in Asia
This theme focussed on the aerosols especially the black carbon, and other particulates. Majority of the papers presented dealt with the studies on climate effects and health effects of aerosols. The climate effects were discussed with reference to the direct and indirect radiative forcing.

Studies showed that the black carbon radiative forcing is about 50% higher than in the Fourth IPCC Report, when black carbon effects on clouds and snow layers are included. Reduction of black carbon concentration is therefore a win-win situation for both air quality and climate warming. It has been observed through a study on aerosols that thick smoke plumes have altered the microphysical properties of aerosols such as effective radius and absorption coefficient.

Certain recommendations suggested a need to measure all aerosol species separately, vertical profiling of aerosol optical properties and studying their relationship with columnar physico-chemical and radiative properties as a short term plan. Spatio-temporal scale variations in aerosol composition and the influence of meteorology, constituent-segregated radiative forcing estimations against composite aerosol forcing, aerosol-cloud-precipitation-climate interactions, both regional and global aspects are some of the topics that need to be studied on a long term basis.The effects of aerosols other than direct RF, such as vertical temperature profiles, clouds (especially for mixed phase and ice clouds) are not well understood. An enhanced participation of regional stations in the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program should be encouraged.

Theme-C - Air Quality and Weather
Papers presented in this theme ranged from studies on ambient/indoor air quality, using various techniques and impacts assessment on living beings and vegetations. Air quality in terms of trace constituents in the atmosphere including CO, CO2, Ozone, SO2, NOx, Particulates (PM 10 & PM 2.5), Carbonaceous particles is measured using online analyzers or filter samples for OC and BC. The impacts of various extreme anthropogenic or even natural activities like, biomass burning, fireworks during Deepawali, forest fires and dust storms are presented. Influences of the dynamical processes, like the boundary layer evolution and their seasonal variations are studied in the context of the air quality and the eventual impact on the public health. A study showed that the inhaled air pollutants are transferred from the mother to the growing foetus via the umbilical cord. It was also determined that burning of biomass leads to the exceeding levels of ozone.

Some issues that needed to be addressed in near future in this theme were, developing a monitoring network at the urban as well as the rural scale to identify in particular the sources of specific pollutants. Models for air quality forecasting need to be updated for which region specific or South Asia specific data in the form of emission inventories, PBL conditions need to be collected to make the models suitable for South Asian countries instead of using the global stats.

Theme-D - Climate and Monsoon
This section saw investigations on interactions between air constituents and climate and linking climate change with the Asian monsoon. The challenges in predicting Asian monsoon, models being used and the impacts of various atmospheric parameters like air quality, aerosols, impacts of aerosols on cloud formation and cloud properties, study of long term wind patterns, uplift of trace gases (e.g. water vapour) into UTLS regions and their radiative impact, long range transport at higher altitudes, troposphere-stratosphere exchange and linkages of Indian Ocean to world oceans have been discussed.

A study held at IITM has shown that the spatial structure of the summer ISOs have certain similarity with that of the summer seasonal mean. A common spatial mode of sub-seasonal and inter annual variability and that the seasonal mean of ISO anomaly can influence seasonal mean if frequency of occurrence of active and break phases are different. In order to have better understanding on linking climate and monsoon, an integrated measurement plan of ground-based, airborne and satellite observations is needed together with and comparisons with model results. The workshop ended with a rapporteur’s session and an award ceremony for the best oral presentation (2) and best posters (8).

Gufran Beig
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, India
E-Mail: beig@tropmet.res.in
John P. Burrow
University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
E-Mail: burrows@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
Manish Naja
Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, India
E-Mail: manish@aries.res.in