Publications

Arshad, R; Tariq, S; ul-Haq, Z (2023). An analysis of aerosol properties during a dust storm due to the TAUKTAE cyclone using remote sensing. AIR QUALITY ATMOSPHERE AND HEALTH, 16(9), 1737-1760.

Abstract
Millions of people suffer from health problems due to poor air quality in regions of high particulate pollution. Therefore, this paper proposes for better understanding of the impact of dust storms on both short- and long-term environmental factors that can help in a preferable formulation of warning and prediction scenarios in arid regions. We evaluate the effect of dust storms on the optical properties of aerosols and meteorological parameters by employing both ground-based and satellite remote sensing approaches. For this, we use AERosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET), MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), and Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) to retrieve aerosol optical properties from 15 May 2021 to 20 May 2021 over Karachi. At 550nm, the instantaneous maximum values of aerosol optical depth (AOD) are measured to be similar to 0.8, and 0.59 on 16 May 2021, and the lowest values of Angstrom Exponent (AE) are discovered to be similar to 0.2, and similar to 0.26 by Aqua-MODIS and AERONET respectively. Such observations are attributed to dust aerosols over Karachi; these values are more than those that might be expected on an ordinary day. We also found S5P and OMI retrieved ultraviolet aerosol index (UVAI) of about 1 and similar to 1.9 on 17 May 2021 respectively which indicate the presence of absorbing (dust) aerosols. Subtypes of aerosols derived by CALIPSO with vertical profile taken on 17 May 2021 segregate the widespread aerosol burden as contaminated dust particles over surrounding regions of Karachi (24.48-30.59 degrees N, 69.01-70.56 degrees E).

DOI:
10.1007/s11869-023-01370-9

ISSN:
1873-9326