Sounding mechanism for LTE-A systems under carrier aggregation is provided. A UE receives an uplink or downlink grant transmitted from an eNB over a primary carrier in a multi-carrier LTE-A system. The UE determines indicated carrier(s) and detects a triggering condition for aperiodic sounding transmission in the grant. The UE then selects UE-specific sounding reference signal (SRS) parameters. Finally, the UE transmits an aperiodic SRS (ap-SRS) over the indicated carrier(s) using the selected UE-specific SRS parameters. In one embodiment, the uplink or downlink grant is transmitted via a PDCCH carrying various DCI formats. Each DCI format contains a carrier indicator field (CIF) that indicates which carrier is used for ap-SRS transmission if cross-carrier scheduling is enabled. In another embodiment, DCI format 3/3A is transmitted via a PDCCH carrying a plurality of information fields, each field indicates if the UE should enable ap-SRS in a particular carrier.