Black Carbon and Elemental Carbon from Postharvest Agricultural-Waste Burning Emissions in the Indo-Gangetic Plain

Table 1

Ambient concentration and optical characteristics of black carbon (BC) and elemental carbon (EC) from different emissions in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP).

Concentration	Paddy-residue burning	Bio- and fossil-fuel combustion	Wheat-residue burning
(μg m^−3)	(October-November; 𝑛=33)	(December–March; 𝑛=28)	(April-May; 𝑛=10)
BC	8.5–19.6 (15.4±3.0)	2.4–18.2 (8.5±3.9)	2.2–9.4 (4.2±2.7)
EC	3.8–17.5 (7.3±2.7)	2.3–8.9 (5.3±1.6)	2.0–8.8 (3.9±2.6)
Characteristic ratios [range (Arithmetic average ± stdev)]
OC/EC	4.6–25.7 (13.0 ± 4.6)	1.9–10.1 (5.6 ± 2.1)	2.5–6.5 (4.0 ± 1.1)
nss-K^+/EC	0.2–2.0 (0.8 ± 0.4)	0.1–0.8 (0.3 ± 0.2)	0.2–0.8 (0.4 ± 0.2)
BC/EC	1.0–3.4 (2.2 ± 0.6)	0.9–2.9 (1.6 ± 0.6)	0.8–1.2 (1.0 ± 0.1)
𝑏abs-AETH (at 880 nm)	8–18 (13 ± 3)	7–64 (27 ± 17)	11–28 (16 ± 6)
𝑏abs-ECOC (corrected for 880 nm)	8–55 (15 ± 9)	8–28 (15 ± 5)	7–20 (13 ± 5)
𝑏abs-AETH/𝑏abs-ECOC	0.3–1.6 (1.0 ± 0.3)	0.3–5.7 (2.0 ± 1.6)	1.0–1.5 (1.2 ± 0.2)