The large-scale emissions of airborne particulates from burning of agricultural residues particularly over the upper Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) have often been associated with frequent formation of haze, adverse health impacts, modification in aerosol climatology and thereby aerosols impact on regional climate. In this study, short-term variations in aerosol climatology during extreme biomass burning emissions over IGP, and thereby to regional climate were investigated. Size-segregated particulate concentration was initially measured and submicron particles (PM 1.1 ) were found to dominate particulate mass within the fine mode (PM 2.1 ). Particulate bound water-soluble ions were mainly secondary in nature, primarily composed of sulfate and nitrate. There was evidence of gaseous NH3 dominating neutralization of acidic aerosol species (SO 4 2− ) in submicron particles, in contrast to crustal dominating neutralization in coarser particulates. Variation in black carbon mass ratio was found to be influenced by local sources, while sudden increase in concentration was consistent with high Delta-C, referring to biogenic emissions. Influence of biomass burning emissions were established using specific organic (levoglucosan), inorganic (K + and NH 4 + ) and satellite (UV Aerosol Index, UVAI) tracers. Levoglucosan was the most abundant within submicron particles (649±177 ng m −3 ), with a very high ratio (>50) against other anhydrosugars, indicating exclusive emissions from burning of agriculture residues. Temporal variations of all the tracers were consistent, while NH 4 + was more closely associated to levoglucosan. Spatio-temporal distribution of aerosol and few trace gases (CO and NO 2 ) were evaluated using both space-borne active and passive sensors, and a significant increase in columnar aerosol loading (AOD: 0.98) was evident during extreme biomass burning emissions, with presence of absorbing aerosols (UVAI > 1.5) having low aerosol layer height (~1.5 km). A strong intraseasonality in aerosol cross-sectional altitudinal profile was even noted from CALIPSO, referring dominance of smoke and polluted continental aerosols across IGP. Possible transport mechanism of biomass smoke was established using cluster analysis and concentration weighted of air mass back-trajectories. Short-wave aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) was further simulated considering intraseasonality in aerosol properties, which resulted in considerable increase of atmospheric ARF (135 Wm −2 ) and heating rate (4.3 K day −1 ) during extreme biomass burning emissions compared to non-dominating one (56 Wm −2 , 1.8 K day −1 ). We therefore conclude that influence of biomass burning emissions on regional aerosol climatology must need to be studied in much finer scale to improve parameterization of aerosol/-climate model across the region.