Abstract. Accompanied by unfavorable meteorological conditions with stable
stratification in various haze regions of China, persistent heavy aerosol
pollution episodes (HPEs) lasting more than 3 consecutive days frequently
occur, particularly in winter. In the North China Plain (NCP), explosive
growth of fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 µm in
diameter (PM2.5), which occurs during some HPES, is dominated by
a two-way feedback mechanism between more unfavorable
meteorological conditions and cumulative aerosol pollution. However, the
existence of a two-way feedback mechanism such as this in other key haze regions in China is
uncertain; these regions include the Guanzhong Plain (GZP), the Yangtze River
Delta (YRD) region, the Two Lakes Basin (TLB; a large outflow basin connected to Hubei Province and Hunan Province), the Pearl River Delta (PRD)
region, the Sichuan Basin (SB), and the Northeast China Plain (NeCP). In this
study, using surface PM2.5 and radiation observations, radiosonde
observations, and reanalysis data, we observed the existence of a two-way
feedback mechanism in the six abovementioned regions. In the SB, this two-way feedback
mechanism is weak due to the suppression of cloudy mid-upper layers. In the
more polluted NCP, the GZP, and the NeCP, the feedback is more striking than
that in the YRD, the TLB, and the PRD. In these regions, the feedback of
worsened meteorological conditions on PM2.5 explains 60 %–70 % of
the increase in PM2.5 during the cumulative stages (CSs). For each
region, the low-level cooling bias becomes increasingly substantial with
increasing aerosol pollution and a closer distance to the ground surface.
With PM2.5 mass concentrations greater than 400 µg m−3,
the near-ground bias exceeded −4 ∘C in Beijing and reached up to
approximately −4 ∘C in Xi'an; this result was caused by
accumulated aerosol mass to some extent. In addition to the increase in
PM2.5 caused by the two-way feedback, these regions also suffer from the
regional transport of pollutants, including inter-regional transport in the
GZP, trans-regional transport from the NCP to the YRD and the TLB, and
southwesterly transport in the NeCP.