What controls the seasonal cycle of black carbon aerosols in India?

The model reproduces the observed seasonality of surface BC fairly well over most parts of India but fails to capture the seasonality in the Himalayas and deviates from the observed BC magnitude at several sites. The errors in modeled BC are attributed to uncertainties in BC emissions and their diurnal cycle, planetary boundary layer height underestimation, and aerosol processes.

Model results show distinct but opposite seasonality of BC in the lower (LT) and free troposphere (FT) with BC showing winter maximum and summer minimum in the LT and vice versa in the FT. Our analysis shows that BC seasonality is not driven by seasonality of the anthropogenic emissions but by changes in the regional meteorology through weakening of the horizontal transport and strengthening of the vertical transport of BC during summertime compared to winter.