Not so long ago in his University of Illinois laboratory, Larry Di Girolamo had never heard of Bihar.Now he can’t get the state out of his head.As NASA’s Terra satellite images of northern India began to unravel on his computer, Larry knew he had seen nothing like the thick brown cover of soot and dust draping one state maximum—Bihar. ‘‘It’s shocking how Bihar stands out in the images,’’ Girolamo, associate professor of atmospheric sciences, University of Illinois, told The Sunday Express. ‘‘Some days it’s much worse, or it’s better. But it always looks hazy. I am stunned.’’ From his faraway lab, Larry could tell Bihar’s electoral campaigners a thing or two they need to know about peoples’ issues there. ‘‘Sometimes we find such a pollution pool localised over a city,’’ he says. ‘‘But this covers an entire, densely populated state!’’ Could the airborne particles affect Bihar’s rainfall patterns, agriculture and damage lungs? An indicator of the possibility is that ‘‘most pollution resides very close to the surface, less than one km in altitude.’’ Living under cover The haze is suspected to have sources in old-fashioned kitchens burning wood and cow dung on smokey stoves, but scientists have not ruled out diesel and vehicular emissions as the cause. The immediate worry, says Ramanathan, is that the pollution could prevent ‘‘10-20 per cent sunlight’’ from hitting the ground. ‘‘We are probing how these particles affect sunlight and rainfall,’’ says Ramanathan, currently studying atmospheric brown clouds over South Asia. At The Energy and Resources Institute—part of a South-Asian Atmospheric Brown Cloud project—director-general R K Pachauri wants more answers. The Bihar haze is estimated to hover at one to three km altitude. ‘‘There’s a world of difference between one and three km,’’ he says. ‘‘We need to investigate its health effects, how much is inhalable.’’ ‘‘Our studies using satellites show that man-made pollution is highest in winter,’’ says S K Satheesh, assistant professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science, and advises ‘‘urgent investigations.’’ In the paper, the team—including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research—demands a study of Bihar’s climate and health changes. But it’s a struggle. ‘‘Over the past few months, I have had a hard time getting reliable, relevant health statistics out of India,’’ Larry confesses. His first advise, distribute modern stoves. Meanwhile the cloud flits over Bihar, spilling into West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and the Bay of Bengal.
