The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region experiences frequent heavy haze pollution in fall and winter. Pollution was often exacerbated by unfavorable atmospheric boundary layer (BL) conditions. The topography in this region impacts the BL processes in complex ways. Such impacts and implications on air quality are not yet clearly understood. The BL processes in all four seasons in BTH are thus investigated in this study using idealized simulations with the WRF-Chem model. Results suggest that seasonal variation of thermal conditions and synoptic patterns significantly modulates BL processes. In fall, with a relatively weak northwesterly synoptic forcing, thermal contrast between the mountains and the plain leads to a prominent mountain-plain breeze circulation (MPC). In the afternoon, the downward branch of the MPC, in addition to northwesterly warm advection, suppresses BL development over the western side of BTH. In the eastern coastal area, a sea-breeze circulation develops late in the morning and intensifies during the afternoon. In summer, southeasterly BL winds allow the see-breeze front to penetrate farther inland (150 km from the coast), and the MPC is less prominent. In spring and winter, with strong northwesterly synoptic winds, the sea-breeze circulation is confined in the coastal area, and the MPC is suppressed. The BL height is low in winter due to strong near-surface stability, while BL heights are large in spring due to strong mechanical forcing. The relatively low BL height in fall and winter may have exacerbated the air pollution, thus contributing to the frequent severe haze events in the BTH region.

The effects of the topography and urbanization on the local atmospheric circulations over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region were studied by the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model, as well as the interactions among these local atmospheric circulations. It was found that, in the summer day time, the multiscale thermally induced local atmospheric circulations may exist and interact in the same time over the BTH region; the topography played a role in the strengthening of the sea breeze circulations; after sunset, the inland progress of sea breeze was slowed down by the opposite mountain breeze; when the land breeze circulation dominated the Bohai bay, the mountain breeze circulation can couple with the land breeze circulation to form a large circulation ranging from the coastline to the mountains. And the presence of cities cannot change the general state of the sea-land breeze (SLB) circulation and mountain-valley breeze (MVB) circulation but acted to modify these local circulations slightly. Meanwhile, the development of the urban heat island (UHI) circulation was also strongly influenced by the nearby SLB circulation and MVB circulation.

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A solvent-free, low-dimensional polymer electrolyte blend is described demonstrating a novel process of 'self-tracking' along the field direction in DC polarisation between lithium electrodes and giving ambient DC and AC conductivities upto 10 23 S cm 21 with low temperature dependence of conduction.