Recent satellite observations of atmospheric aerosol loading over Asia indicate a dipole pattern in the aerosol optical depth (AOD) with a substantial decrease in AOD over East Asia and persistent increase in AOD over South Asia, the two global hotspots of aerosol emissions. Aerosol emissions over Asia are also changing rapidly. However, the evolution of physical, optical and chemical columnar aerosol characteristics, and their radiative effects over time, and the resultant impacts of such evolving trends on climate and other associated risks are not yet properly quantified, and used in climate impact assessments. In order to do so, we closely examine, in addition to satellite observations, for the first time, high-quality, ca. two-decade long ground-based observations since 2001 of aerosols and their radiative effects from several locations in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) in South Asia and the North China Plain (NCP) in East Asia. A clear divergence in the trends in AODs is evident between the IGP and the NCP. The single scattering albedo (SSA) is increasing, and the absorption AOD due to carbonaceous aerosols (AAOD(CA)) is decreasing over both regions, confirming that aerosols are becoming more scattering in nature. The trends in observed aerosol content (AOD) and composition (SSA) are statistically significant over Kanpur in the IGP and Beijing in the NCP, two locations with longest ground-based records. The aerosol radiative forcing of atmosphere (ARF(ATM)) and resultant atmospheric heating rate (HR) are decreasing over both regions. However, current regionally coherent and high annual HR of 0.5-1.0 K day(-1) has severe implications to climate, hydrological cycle, and cryosphere over Asia and beyond. These results based on high-quality observations over a large spatial domain are of great significance and are crucial for modelling and quantifying aerosol-climate interactions. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of International Association for Gondwana Research.

A synergistic use of satellite and ground based remote sensing data has been utilized to analyze recent changes in the aerosol column loading over the Indo Gangetic Plain (IGP). Despite an overall statistically significant increase in the trend of annual mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) over the past decade, a prominent difference within seasons was observed. Summer and monsoon seasons have a slight decreasing trend, while post monsoon and winter have significant increasing trend. The optically equivalent composition inferred from ground based long term measurements of aerosol size and absorption characteristics reveals that summer and monsoon season are mostly dust dominated. Whereas, post monsoon and winter seasons are dominated by black carbon (BC) and/or other absorbing aerosols. We find that the observed decrease in AOD is associated with decrease in dust loading in the atmosphere with a large spatial extent covering the whole of North-Western part of India and IGP. Similar changes are associated with absorbing carbonaceous aerosol species during the periods showing an increasing trend. The decreasing dust loading over Indian region during summer along with increase in absorbing black carbon aerosols during the pre-monsoon and the monsoon period may have significant impact on aerosol radiative forcing and hence Indian summer monsoon rainfall.