Aerosol loading in conjugation with rainfall-inferences from multi-temporal multi-sensor satellite datasets

Aerosol is one of the dominating factors in global and regional climate change and has great ability to influence the climate by absorption and scattering. The study shows the variation of aerosol and rainfall in South Indian region using satellite data for 10 years (2005-14). South India receives most of the precipitation due to South-West and North-East Monsoon. The analysis is done using data from TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Project) 3B43: Monthly (0.25 × 0.25) Merged product and AOD (aerosol optical depth) Level 3 data from MODIS (1 × 1) (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) along with MISR (0.5 × 0.5) (Multi-angle Imaging Spectro Radiometer) satellite sensors on NASA´s Terra satellite. Results for five metropolitan cities in South Indian region have been reported in specific. Vishakhapatnam is spotted as one of the most polluted cities in terms of aerosol loading during the last decade. Precipitation values have also been reported for each of the five cities both annually and in different seasons.