Abstract
Every year, from December to April, anthropogenic haze spreads over most of the North Indian Ocean, and South and Southeast Asia. The Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) documented this Indo-Asian haze at scales ranging from individual particles to its contribution to the regional climate forcing. This study integrates the multiplatform observations (satellites, aircraft, ships, surface stations, and balloons) with 1D and 4D models to derive the regional aerosol forcing resulting from the direct, the semidirect, and the two indirect effects. The haze particles consisted of several inorganic and carbonaceous species, including absorbing black carbon clusters, fly ash, and mineral dust. The most striking result was the large loading of aerosols over most of the South Asian region and the North Indian Ocean. The January to March 1999 visible optical depths were about 0.5 over most of the continent and reached values as large as 0.2 over the equatorial Indian ocean due to long-range transport. The aerosol layer extended as high as 3 km. Black carbon contributed about 14 percent to the fine particle mass and 11 percent to the visible optical depth. The single-scattering albedo estimated by several independent methods was consistently around 0.9 both inland and over the open ocean. Anthropogenic sources contributed as much as 80 percent (+/- 10 percent) to the aerosol loading and the optical depth. (Author)