Projects >> LIDAR Nainital is geographically located in 'free
tropospheric' zone and is reasonably sparse from the point of
view of major pollution, making the site quite suitable to study
aerosol loading and climate variability. In lower atmosphere
aerosols and trace gases are considered to be the most important
entities in the radiation budget and climatic variability. Such
unique location being at a high altitude (~2 km amsl) which is a
natural advantage of Nainital, demands for regular and
systematic observations of atmospheric parameters, to understand
the various atmospheric processes. The study of aerosols at
ARIES was initiated during January, 2002 when a Multi-wavelength
solar Radiometer (MWR) was installed at Manora Peak, Nainital,
under ISRO's Geosphere-Biosphere-Program (ISRO-GBP) for
evaluation the spectral aerosols optical depths. In order to
study the aerosol's characteristics, the augmentation plan of
various other instruments was undertaken later on. The important
parameters of aerosols, whic