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South Asian brown haze over Nepalese town of Phaplu
South Asian brown haze hangs over the Nepalese town of Phaplu (bottom panel) on March 25, 2001. The photo was taken from an airline flight, altitude of about 3 kilometers. The location was approximately 30 km south of Mount Everest (seen in the top panel). Both photos were taken from the same location--one viewing north (top), the other south (bottom).
During the dry season from January to April, the brown sky seen over Nepal is typical of many areas in South Asia. The dry, north-east monsoonal winds carry the anthropogenic haze thousands of kilometers south and south-eastwards and spread it over most of the tropical Indian Ocean, from 25 degrees north to about 5 degrees south. Aerosols pose the largest uncertainty in model calculations of climate forcing due to man-made changes in the composition of the atmosphere. [See V. Ramanathan, P.J. Crutzen, J.T. Kiehl and D. Rosenfeld, 2001: Aerosols, Climate and the Hydrological Cycle. Science, 294, 2119-2124].
This research was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (grant ATM 01-36239). (Year of image: 2001)
Credit: Photo by V. Ramanathan
Special Restrictions: Anyone desiring to use this image for any reason other than personal should first contact the owner, Dr. Veerabhardran Ramanatha, for permission via email at vramanathan@ucsd.edu.
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