Air Pollution In India Has Cut Amount Of Sunlight Reaching The Ground By 5% In 20 Years - Times

WASHINGTON: India may be enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, but the country is also facing a darkening environmental gloom. A just-published research paper has warned that a blanket of smog hanging over the subcontinent is cutting down sunlight. In fact, the study by Padma Kumari and her team at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune says India is getting about 5 per cent less sunlight than it did 20 years ago.

The study, published in the Geophysical Research Letters and reported in the New Scientist this week, found that the amount of solar radiation reaching India's land mass dropped on average by 0.86 watts per square meter each year. The decrease was greater during the 1990s than the 1980s, suggesting that increased industrial activity was accelerating the trend.

Padma Kumari and team studied data from the India Meteorological Department, measuring differences in solar radiation at 12 stations across India between 1981 and 2004. They determined that the average decline corresponded to a 5 per cent drop in sunshine over the two decades. According to Kumari, smog resulting from industrial activity, vehicular pollution, biomass burning, dust storms etc is increasing Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). Greater AOD, which is the optical depth due to extinction by the aerosol component of the atmosphere, results in lesser sunshine.

''And because India is on a steep industrialization and developmental curve, the AOD is only increasing, ands sunshine lessening'' she said in an interview to TNN from here office in Pune. How bad it would get depended on a variety of factors, she added, pointing also to a reverse trend in the West.

EDIT

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Rising_India_getting_less_sunshine/articleshow/2544246.cms

Put so much crap in the air that sunlight never hits the ground.

Many millions of families across southeast Asia also still cook over open flame, which contributes hugely to the smoke and particulates in the air.