ABSTRACT
Antarctica allows for studying the pristine environment. The region is devoid of any major human activity and is currently the worst affected region on the Earth due to climate change where glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. In the present study, we attempted to study the physicochemical properties (shape, size, mixing state, and chemical composition) of Antarctic aerosols at the individual particle level. The frequency distribution of aspect ratio and circulatory factor of the Antarctic aerosols was observed to be bimodal with their respective mode peaks at 1.3 and 1.9, and 0.3 and 0.7. The particles were observed to be rich in Al, Mg, Si, Fe, Ti, Ca, and Cr. The particles are mainly from the crustal origin with variable shapes e.g. triangular, layered, flattened, aggregated, and glass-like structure. The spectral variation of Single Scattering Albedo (SSA) shows that the particles rich in Fe2O3 and Cr2O3 are more efficient solar radiation absorbers, while particles rich in Al2O3 exhibit high scattering.
