Impact of Biomass Burning on Black Carbon and NO2 Over North Eastern Region of India Using Multi-satellite Observations

Large scale biomass burning like forest fires and crop residue burning can significantly impact the physical environment, including land cover, land use, ecology, habitats, and climate change. We investigated the effect of fire counts on surface Black Carbon mass concentration (BCC) and Tropospheric Columnar NO2 (TCN) over the North Eastern Region (NER) of India in the domain: 20° N–30° N and 88° E–98° E for 15 years from 2006 to 2020 using MODIS, MERRA-2 and OMI data. Significant fire counts are recorded in January, February, March, and April. An average of 65,000 fire counts is recorded in March and April during the 15 years of study over the domain. TCN is high in Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, followed by Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya in March and April, which varies from 18.79 × 1014 to 29.08 × 1014 cm−2 in March, 10.76 × 1014–15.81 × 1014 cm−2 in January and February, and 12.67 × 1014–14.2 × 1014 cm−2 in April. Spatially averaged BC varies from 1.80 to 2.76 µg m−3 in January and February and 1.82–2.36 µg m−3 in March. BCC is high in Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Brahmaputra valley of Assam than in the rest of the NER.