ABSTRACT
Recent advances in field instrumentation and remote sensing technologies have paved the way for a variety of novel approaches to study the polar atmosphere, especially aerosols and precursor gases of both land and marine origin, influencing the Antarctica climate differently. Extensive field observations have been carried out over the southern Indian Ocean on the transit journey between Cape Town to Antarctica during the 24th Indian Antarctic Expedition voyage. We used ground-based total column ozone measurements (microtops sunphotometer, Dobson spectrophotometer, and Brewer spectrometer) and satellite (TOMS, GOES, and SCIMACHY) data during January 2005 and December 2006 over the Indian Antarctic station Maitri (70.76°S, 11.74°E). The results revealed a short-lived ozone depletion and heterogeneous chemical effect of Antarctic aerosols. The study also points out that in addition to the ozone loss in polar regions on a seasonal time scale, the short-term ozone depletion caused by Solar Proton Events (SPEs) produced nitrate aerosols could also have a significant impact on Earth's biosphere. Such studies are very sparse and almost non-existent in this region, and hence the proposed measurements would help to bridge this gap to a certain extent.
